As the 2025 PGA Tour schedule comes to life, inviting the privileged class to Maui last week for the Sentry and including everyone else on the guest list at the Sony Open in Hawaii this week, the shadow of 2024 lingers like a slow-setting sun.
That’s because of what Scottie Scheffler and Xander Schauffele did last year while raising the question of what they might do this year.
Even before the new season began, Scheffler had been sidelined for a few weeks after cutting his hand on broken glass and requiring surgery to remove pieces of glass. He is expected to recover quickly and while it may be too much to expect him to match what he did last year – seven official wins and the FedEx Cup title plus the Olympic gold medal and an impressive victory at the Hero World Challenge in December – Scheffler looks locked in for a long run of dominance.
Not since Tiger Woods in his prime has a player separated himself from his peers as emphatically as Scheffler has done over the past 12 months, earning him a third straight player-of-the-year vote from his peers.
It was enough that even Schauffele, who won two major championships, was left starstruck.
“It’s a wild time. Winning two majors and being further away, or closer to the 30th-ranked player than the first – hat’s off to Scottie. He’s a beast,” Schauffele, the world’s second-ranked player, said last week.
As the ’25 season unfolds, here are the key areas to watch:
In many ways, 2025 will look similar to 2024 as the tour has settled into its new rhythm built around its signature events and what feels like an eight-month sprint through the FedEx Cup playoffs.
The Sentry was the first of eight signature events, all of which are the same as they were in 2024 with the Wells Fargo Championship morphing into the Truist Championship and making a one-year stop at the Philadelphia Cricket Club while its long-term host, Quail Hollow Club, hosts the PGA Championship in May.
Scheffler, in case you’ve forgotten, won four of the seven signature events he played last year, reinforcing his dominance by beating the strongest fields of the season while also winning the Players Championship, the Masters and the Tour Championship.
The playoffs in August will begin as usual at the FedEx St. Jude Championship in Memphis, Tenn., with the top 70 players in the season-long standings. The top 50 will move to the BMW Championship at Caves Valley near Baltimore and conclude again with a 30-man field at the Tour Championship at East Lake.
Then comes the Ryder Cup at Bethpage Black, where the recent decision to give each American $500,000 for their participation – $300,000 to be directed to charity and $200,000 as a stipend – is sure to add more spice to what could be an extremely rowdy event on Long Island.
Once the holiday decorations come down, there is an almost magnetic pull toward the Masters in April. Augusta National and its surrounding area suffered major damage from Hurricane Helene in September, and while the course reopened in the fall, the Augusta area has continued to deal with the storm’s aftermath, no doubt adding another emotional layer to Masters week this year.
Quail Hollow Club hosts its second PGA Championship eight years after Justin Thomas won his first major there. Other than the buildout, don’t expect it to look dramatically different from the annual PGA Tour stop there but expect Kerry Haigh, the PGA of America’s master setup man, to hit all the right notes.
The U.S. Open goes to Oakmont, which some believe is the quintessential spot for the national championship. It’s golf’s version of a punch in the nose and Oakmont’s unrelenting nature should prove fascinating for anyone who likes to watch the best players in the world grind for pars.
Finally, the Open Championship returns to Royal Portrush in Northern Ireland where Shane Lowry’s victory in 2019 still glows. Portrush embodies the rugged and romantic charm of wind-blown links golf and the return of both Lowry and Rory McIlroy, whose performances there six years ago landed on opposite ends of the emotional scale, provide a spectacular starting point.
Let’s start with this one: Could Scheffler get better?
Perhaps and that’s because of what he did at the Hero World Challenge when he debuted his use of the claw grip on medium-length putts. If there’s a weaker area in Scheffler’s game, it’s short and mid-range putting and going to the claw – after weeks of practice – suggested the change has made a difference.
Can anyone bump Scheffler from his perch atop the game?
It seems hard to imagine it happening this year but Schauffele may still be underappreciated despite winning the PGA Championship and the Open Championship last year. He seems to be at his best when he has something to prove and, in his mind, it seems he still does.
Both have endured what can be called mid-career declines but there is reason to believe both will find their misplaced magic.
Thomas showed signs last year and figures to end a winless streak that stretches more than two years, having seemingly cleared the clutter from his mind and his game.
Spieth underwent wrist surgery in the latter part of last year to alleviate an ailment that bothered him for months. This is a big year for him to show that he can get back to being the player he was.
We’re entering the second decade since his last major championship victory in 2014 and by that exacting standard, he has underachieved. Widen the lens, however, and McIlroy’s sustained excellence shines through. He is a generational talent who is poised to redirect the narrative this year.
He was the hottest player in the world in late 2023 then cut ties with coach Joe Mayo and seemed to lose his way. Hovland and Mayo reconnected for a time then split again recently. Three missed cuts in majors last year suggests this is a critical year for the young Norwegian.
Since Ludvig Åberg is already a star, let’s go with Michael Thorbjornsen, who earned his spot by finishing atop the PGA Tour University standings last year. College players aren’t timid anymore when they arrive on tour and Thorbjornsen appears to be the latest new face to make himself familiar in a hurry.
Having recently turned 49, age has made recovering from his many injuries more challenging, something he grudgingly admitted in December. He still wants to play but, realistically, it would be a shock if he were to win again.
There is, however, the prospect of Tiger playing with his buddies a year from now on PGA Tour Champions, riding carts, going three days instead of four and loving his new life. It seemed preposterous a decade ago. These days, it sounds fun.