The 2025 season was packed with highlights, from Rory McIlroy’s completion of a Grand Slam career at the Masters and Scottie Scheffler’s two major victories to Jeeno Thitikul’s title defense at the CME Group Tour Championship, where she cemented her status as the new queen of the LPGA.
In total, the PGA Tour crowned winners in 46 official tournaments in 2025, while the LPGA had 32. Which wins emerged as the most memorable of the year? Check out our favorite seasonal highlights below.
Rory’s Grand Slam
It feels impossible to top the magnitude and emotional relevance of McIlroy’s Masters victory, when there were so many factors at play: the fact that McIlroy had not won a major in eleven years; that he had suffered a crushing defeat at Augusta in 2011; that he had suffered a more recent soul-crushing defeat at the 2024 US Open at Pinehurst, when two short missed putts down the stretch derailed his chances of winning. The list goes on!
Then, as victory loomed on Sunday at the 2025 Masters, late missteps put his victory in doubt again, with a double-bogey on 13 and a bogey on 18, putting him in a sudden-death play-off with Justin Rose.
The stakes simply couldn’t be higher. McIlroy’s birdie to win – and the cathartic outpouring of emotion he showed on the green in the aftermath – made for one of the most dramatic and emotionally charged viewings of the year.
JJ Spaun’s long bomb at the US Open
Heading into the 2025 US Open at Oakmont, JJ Spaun had just one win on his resume. But during a rainy big week, he overcame a five-bogey start in the first six holes of the final round, using a mid-round weather delay to his advantage.
Spaun reset to go three under par on the back nine, punctuated by clutch birdies on 17 and a show-stopping 64-foot bomb for birdie falling on the 18th, which ultimately sealed his victory.
The putt was so epic that even Spaun’s closest competitors, Robert MacIntyre and Tyrrell Hatton, couldn’t help but praise the winner.
Keegan Bradley’s Travelers Championship glory
Keegan Bradley’s Ryder Cup captaincy happened to coincide with some of the best golf of his life.
The now 39-year-old’s game started to pick up in late 2022, when he won the ZOZO, ending a four-year victory drought. He went on to win the 2023 Travelers Championship and the 2024 BMW Championship, making a serious case for a scenario where he could pick himself for his own Ryder Cup team.
Bradley posted four top-eight finishes over the first five months of 2025. June’s Travelers Championship came as Bradley caught fire with his putting during the final round, draining three long bombs of 16, 64 and 37 feet, which set up a six-foot clutch on the final hole that Bradley also drained to win the tournament by one stroke over Tommy Fleetwood (who at the time was still looking for his first PGA Tour victory) and Russell Henley.
The win made Bradley’s worthiness as Ryder Cup captain seem like a lock, but he ultimately refused to make his own choice.
Cam Young wins the Wyndham
Until this year, Cameron Young was often cited as one of the Tour’s best players without a win.
The 28-year-old had come unbearably close seven time prior to the Wyndham Championship in August.
Then it was finally Young’s time. He cruised to a wire-to-wire victory by as many as six shots over Mac Meissner.
The victory was also a good moment to shine, with his name taking center stage for US Ryder Cup captain Keegan Bradley. Young was given the title of captain and was a standout for the American team at Bethpage, with a 3-1-0 victory.
Tommy Fleetwood’s breakthrough
Like Cameron Young, Tommy Fleetwood suffered a number of near misses in his quest to win his first PGA Tour tournament (though Fleetwood did have an impressive list of victories on his DP World Tour resume).
With six PGA Tour runner-ups to his name, including the heartbreaking loss to Bradley at the aforementioned Travelers Championship, it seemed only a matter of time before Fleetwood would make his breakthrough. Sure enough, his time came quickly, as his triple Tour Championship victory over Patrick Cantlay and Russell Henley sealed the deal for his first PGA Tour title – and also earned him a tidy $10 million winner’s check.
Lottie Woad wins the Scottish Open on professional debut
Woad, a former world number 1 on the amateur circuit, is used to winning big. She has an Augusta National Women’s Amateur Championship on her resume, as well as a victory at the Ladies European Tour’s Irish Open, which she achieved while still an amateur.
But when Woad achieved a treble victory at the Women’s Scottish Open, she found herself in an even more tenuous atmosphere. The win was an incredible achievement in itself, but exponentially more so when you consider it was the 21-year-old’s professional debut, matching Rose Zhang’s feat in 2023.
Jeeno has the upper hand after destroying four wells
While Jeeno Thitikul’s win on the CME Group Tour would be a worthy entry on this list, her recovery from a crushing loss to Charley Hull after putting four from the 18th green feels even more important.
In a season that saw record parity on the LPGA Tour, with 29 different winners, Thitikul looked to become the season’s first two-time winner at the Kroger Queen City Classic in September. Victory seemed within her grasp, but a shocking four-putt on the 18th hole meant the title went to Hull.
Thitikul later said that she cried so much over the loss that she had to apply an ice pack to her face. She then took a week off to regroup in Banff, Canada, without her clubs.
Mentally recovered, Thitikul won her next start, the LPGA Shanghai. Thitikul reached the 17th hole in the final round to force a playoff, and she eventually won on the fifth playoff hole against Japan’s Minami Katsu. The win made Thitikul the first player to achieve two wins all season – a feat matched three weeks later by Miyu Yamashita. But Thitikul’s victory in the season finale of the CME Group Tour Championship in November, three weeks afterward, made her the only three-time winner of the year.
Hovland’s ‘disgusting shots’
When Viktor Hovland won back-to-back titles in the BMW Championship and the Tour Championship in 2023, he seemed unstoppable. But golf is a fickle game and Hovland was winless on the PGA Tour in 2024.
He also didn’t get off to a great start in 2025, missing three straight appearances at the Genesis, Arnold Palmer Invitational and Players Championship before arriving at the Valspar.
Hovland started the final round trailing Justin Thomas, but birdied three of his final five holes to beat Thomas by one shot.
Despite the surprise victory, Hovland remained memorably unimpressed with the state of his game.
“It’s incredible to see that I was able to win,” Hovland said. “Because I honestly didn’t believe I could do it this week.
“I still take a lot of disgusting shots.”
The revival of Justin Rose
At 45, Justin Rose is an elder statesman on the PGA Tour, but he continually proves he can keep up with the young guns – like in August, when the world No. 10 claimed a wire-to-wire win at FedEx St. Jude.
Rose, tied with U.S. Open champion JJ Spaun, beat Spaun in a playoff with a birdie on the third hole to claim his 12th career PGA Tour victory and first since the 2023 AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am.
Justin Thomas understands drought in play-off at RBC
With 15 PGA Tour victories over the past decade, JT is one of the most consistently excellent players on Tour. But after his second major championship victory at the 2022 PGA, Thomas began a nearly three-year victory drought – the longest of his career.
Prior to the RBC Heritage, Thomas had recorded four top nine finishes, including two runners-up. But victory had remained elusive. Then things changed in Harbor Town. Thomas tied with Andrew Novak in regulation and drained a 20-foot birdie putt to win the tournament on the first playoff hole, giving him his 16th career win — and a serious boost in confidence for the rest of the season.
Scottie’s third major
Which of Scottie Scheffler’s two big wins was the most memorable in 2025? He won them both by impressive margins: five shots at the PGA and four at the Open Championship. But the PGA is resonating – especially given the circumstances of last year’s PGA Championship, where Scheffler was present shockingly arrested.
The 2025 PGA victory was yet another impressive example of Scheffler’s dominance and resilience. And now, after his Open Championship triumph, he is one US Open victory away from becoming the seventh player ever to achieve the career Grand Slam. And something tells us he won’t stop there.
Chaos in the Ryder Cup
We end this wonderful commemoration of the season with a look back at the Ryder Cup at Bethpage Black, which was so full of compelling storylines that it’s hard to know where to start.
From captain Keegan Bradley’s desire for redemption and the crowd’s unruly behavior to the Europeans’ early dominance and Sunday’s nail-biting American comeback in singles, the 2025 Ryder Cup, which Team Europe won by a 15-13 margin, is one we won’t soon forget.
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