If 2026 is great, we will be grateful for these leadership changes in 2025

The past twelve months have had a little bit of everything: a Grand Slam career, Ryder Cup chaos and much more. With 2026 on the horizon, our writers look back at the most memorable moments from 2025 and explain why they mattered.

No. 15 — The putter motion without torque | No. 14 — ‘Happy Gilmore 2’ takes the golf world by storm | No. 13 — Joaquin Niemann’s big 2025 (and crucial 2026) | No. 12 — JJ Spaun kills Oakmont | No. 11 — The internet invitation | No. 10 — Jeeno Thitikul’s record year | No. 9 — Tiger Woods’ next role | No. 8 — Tommy Fleetwood breaks through | No. 7 — The birth of TGL | No. 6 — Keegan Bradley’s big decision | No. 5 — Europe wins another Ryder Cup | No. 4 — Bethpage Joking | No. 3 — Scottie Scheffler dominated (again)

Biggest Golf Moments of 2025 #2: New Sheriff(s) in Town

Golf fans would be forgiven for rolling their eyes at yet another year gone by without meaningful progress on unification in the men’s game or better ratings metrics in the women’s game. On those fronts, 2025 wasn’t sexy at all. But the year brought much more momentum toward actionable, tangible, meaningful change in pro golf than it seemed. And Why? The answer is simple: leadership.

Nearly every meaningful professional golf tour – with the exception of the DP World Tour – has new leadership in tow as we move towards 2026. Craig Kessler signed for the LPGA Tour as the new commissioner after a period at the PGA of America and as an executive in the startup world. For LIV Golf, Scott O’Neil joined the group, hoping to make his ProcessA stint at the helm of the Philadelphia 76ers basketball club would provide meaningful wisdom for a golf tour still finding its footing. And for the PGA Tour – undoubtedly the biggest of those hires – the new commander-in-chief was Brian Rolapp, Roger Goodell’s old right-hand man and the NFL’s media czar, who was appointed to take the reins from outgoing (and embattled) commissioner Jay Monahan.

It would normally feel wrong to rank executive employees as one of the biggest stories of 2025, but there is some confidence in that lofty ranking. The previous generation of leaders in Pro Golf has changed a lot, but their last stretch at the helm was marked by a period of stagnation: the battle lines were drawn, the rules were written. The months since these leaders were replaced have revealed a renewed sense of vigor around reimagining golf as we know it and as we watch it. Sometimes new leadership can mean much more than just hanging up the curtains.

Rolapp entered the Tour in the middle of the summer, shook many hands and started forging a new path. The biggest change came in the form of the Future Competitions Committee – a brand new group tasked with cultivating the PGA Tour’s ideal future shape and bringing in Tiger Woods as its leader. We don’t know everything the so-called “FCC” is on the rise, but we do know that it starts with an attempt to create scarcity. In short, we believe this will lead to fewer, larger PGA Tour events on the annual calendar. For inspiration, Rolapp didn’t have to look further than the importance of the upcoming week of the NFL schedule — Week 18 — where almost every single game matters for playoff seeding, draft positioning or postseason dreams. Without such a (relatively) short and small season, these games might not (and might not) feel like anything are) equally important. Sometimes less actually is more.

O’Neil had to play a slightly different ballgame. More than any competitive change, O’Neil first had to establish himself as a fresh face for the newcomers. His predecessor, Greg Norman, had exhausted the patience of virtually every governing body in the sport, further escalating tensions between the new league and its competitors. O’Neil’s had to repair relationships – especially with the Official World Golf Ranking, in its pursuit of major championship eligibility – and was able to work with the USGA and R&A to create additional exemptions from their major championships for LIV players. O’Neil has acknowledged that he has a relationship with Rolapp, small as it may be, which offers the barest hope of any unity in the men’s game. He also introduced a new calling card for the role LIV hopes to play in the golf landscape: Complete, not competitive. But whether that happens or not, O’Neil is the captain of the LIV ship and is much more available as a leader to the public than his predecessor.

Like Rolapp, Kessler joined the LPGA in the second half of the summer from the PGA of America, where he was chief operating officer. He showed up in time to oversee much more of the regular season than Rolapp could, and has made himself amply available to the golf media. Take his recent conversation with GOLF.com’s James Colgan, where he discussed changing media trends and the “attention economy.”

“It was an eye-opener for me to see how the future generation of LPGA athletes consume media and entertainment,” Kessler told Colgan. “We’re thinking about winning our share of the attention economy, and we’re making the right moves in the right ways to succeed.”

In his few months on the job, Kessler has landed the Saudi PIF as a new tournament sponsor, as well as securing better LPGA broadcast coverage starting in 2026. (50% more cameras, drone footage, and Trackman-enhanced shot tracking.) Clearly, his narrowed view of a few key initiatives is popular with LPGA pros. And that’s really why these new hires together are such an important story for 2025. They seem to have a lot of support.

O’Neil has as many world ranking points as anything on his priority list, and it looks like LIV will check that box soon. Rolapp arrived promising to make “significant change,” and just a few months later we’re talking about a Tour schedule that doesn’t start until February. That won’t please everyone, but it will at least get the train moving out of the station and in a new direction.