The PGA Tour on Monday announced Aldrich Potgieter as the winner of the 2025 Arnold Palmer Award, the honor given to the Tour’s Rookie of the Year.
Normally a story like this would lead to the big award that was also announced on Monday, PGA Tour Player of the Year (also known as the Jack Nicklaus Award), but it wasn’t exactly surprising.
Scottie Scheffler won it again, as he did in 2024, 2023 and 2022. While you might think there was a slim chance Rory McIlroy could steal this, it was probably never this close (voting percentages among tour members were not released). Despite winning three fewer times than Scheffler, McIlroy achieved victories at the Players and Masters, the latter completing the career Grand Slam. McIlroy’s win at Augusta was the biggest memorable victory of the year, but that alone is not enough to overshadow Scheffler’s oeuvre.
Scheffler won six times in 2025, including two more majors, the PGA Championship and the Open Championship. He is now just one US Open victory away from completing the Grand Slam career.
His resume made him the obvious choice for his fourth Jack Nicklaus Award in a row. And right now, with him still in the clutches of the best golfer in the world, there’s really only one question worth asking: will he ever be repressed?
Now with four consecutive appearances, Scheffler has one more than McIlroy’s three, and only Tiger Woods has won more consecutive PGA Tour Player of the Year honors since its inception in 1990. Woods won five in a row from 1999 to 2003 (and later three more in a row from 2005 to 2007).
Scheffler’s past two years have produced little discussion about the rightful recipient of the award.
He won seven times in 2024, receiving 91 percent of the vote. He was also a runaway winner in 2022 (89 percent), and in just one year (2023) it was even close, when his 38 percent left behind Wyndham Clark, Viktor Hovland, Jon Rahm and McIlroy.
If Scheffler wins POY next year, he will tie Woods with the most consecutive awards (five). At that moment the question arises whether he can catch Woods, who has won the prize eleven times in his career.
It’s a good bet that Scheffler will win a handful more, although it’s too early to say he has a legitimate chance to deter Woods’ total of 11.
That said, with thirteen wins in the last two years, don’t expect him to disappear anytime soon. Certainly not his peers. Take Scheffler’s last win, at the Procore Championship in September. Scheffler played alone in what is normally a sleepy offseason event as a Ryder Cup tune-up for Team USA members. Lanto Griffin finished third, an important finish to improve his status in the FedEx Cup Fall as he desperately tries to earn full PGA Tour status for 2026. In an emotional interview afterwards, Griffin talked about winning Q-School last year, extending his Tour life and how it all came together at the Procore. For him, every point counted.
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