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7D AGO

Opening Drive: 25 bold predictions for 2025 PGA TOUR season

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    Written by Cameron Morfit @CMorfitPGATOUR

    In such topsy-turvy times, it’s hard to predict with a straight face where the game will be in even a week or two. Who foresaw being where we are now?

    That said, here are 25 predictions that absolutely/probably/maybe will come true in 2025, a bevy of insights from The Sentry to the TOUR Championship, world No. 1 Scottie Scheffler all the way down to the next Korn Ferry Tour Three-Victory Promotion winner.

    Here goes nothing.

    1. Justin Thomas, who used a 46-inch driver to great effect at the Hero World Challenge (solo third), will win The Sentry at Kapalua for the third time to kick off 2025.

    2. Patton Kizzire, after his unconventional therapy of tree-hugging and singing yielded a victory at the Procore Championship in the fall, will keep it going with his second career win at the Sony Open in Hawaii. Cue the ukeleles.

    3. Scottie Scheffler, who has racked up eight victories in three years at the Arnold Palmer Invitational presented by Mastercard (two), THE PLAYERS Championship (two), the WM Phoenix Open (two) and the Masters Tournament (two), will win two of those four tournaments on the way to being voted PGA TOUR Player of the Year. Again.


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    4. Danish twins Nicolai and Rasmus Højgaard, the latter of whom just finished No. 1 in the DP World Tour Eligibility Ranking, will confuse people as alternate-shot partners at the Ryder Cup. And one of them will win on the PGA TOUR.

    5. Viktor Hovland will make us forget his strangely lethargic 2024 with an epic comeback in ’25, capped off by his first major title at the U.S. Open at Oakmont.

    6. Rory McIlroy will get much of the attention in the run-up to the PGA Championship at Quail Hollow Club, his home away from home. But Xander Schauffele, who was on track to win what is now the Truist Championship at Quail before a late comeback by McIlroy last May, will successfully defend his PGA title.

    7. Defying all logic, McIlroy will win the Truist Championship for the fifth time even though it won’t be played at Quail Hollow, which is gearing up for the PGA, but instead will be hosted by The Philadelphia Cricket Club.

    8. Pennsylvania’s Neal Shipley, who didn’t get through Second Stage of PGA TOUR Q-School presented by Korn Ferry, will qualify for the U.S. Open at Oakmont Country Club in Pennsylvania, as his home redefines "swing" state with high-level championship golf.

    9. Shane Lowry, who won by six at the 2019 Open Championship at Royal Portrush Golf Club in Northern Ireland, will successfully win another claret jug as The Open returns to Royal Portrush, again thrilling golf fans across the island of Ireland.

    10. Although the same rental house has produced the winner of the John Deere Classic three years running – the same room, in fact, in the case of ’23 and ’24 champions Sepp Straka and Davis Thompson, respectively – Trophy House will not get it done in ’25, thereby ending the zaniest streak in golf.


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    11. After the first year since 2012 in which the U.S. Presidents/Ryder Cup team featured neither Jordan Spieth nor Justin Thomas, both will make the U.S. Ryder Cup squad that will take on the Europeans at Bethpage Black. Spieth will play his way back from off-season wrist surgery; Thomas will emerge from a long putting funk.

    12. Rickie Fowler, who went dormant again and failed to make the FedExCup Playoffs in 2024 as he and wife Allison awaited the birth of their second child, Nellie, will get his seventh PGA TOUR title. (He finished fourth at the fall’s ZOZO CHAMPIONSHIP.)

    13. Tom Kim’s winless ’24, when he wound up with the dreaded 51st spot in the FedExCup, will not continue as he captures his fourth PGA TOUR title at the Genesis Scottish Open, where he has finished T15, T6 and solo third the last three seasons.

    14. Tiger Woods, who made a tournament-record 24th consecutive cut at the Masters Tournament in April but struggled afterward before undergoing season-ending lower back surgery in September, will make his 25th straight cut at the Masters.

    15. Colombia’s Nico Echavarria, who captured his second PGA TOUR title at the ZOZO CHAMPIONSHIP, and finished T2 at The RSM Classic, will find his way into at least half of the Signature Events.

    16. Someone will make back-to-back eagles, a feat that has become less rare than it sounds. Those who accomplished it this year included: Adam Svensson (Nos. 9-10 fourth round, Sony Open in Hawaii), Ryan Fox (Nos. 16-17 first round, THE PLAYERS Championship), Taylor Pendrith (Nos. 5-6 third round, THE CJ CUP Byron Nelson), Eric Cole (Nos. 14-15 second round, Memorial Tournament presented by Workday), and Brice Garnett (Nos. 14-15 fourth round, Sanderson Farms Championship).

    17. For the second year in a row, a player will earn the Three-Victory Promotion on the Korn Ferry Tour. Most likely to get it done: either Sam Bennett or Zach Bauchou.

    18. Matt McCarty, he of the Korn Ferry Tour’s Three-Victory Promotion in ’24, and victory at the Black Desert Championship in the FedExCup Fall, will pick up his second PGA TOUR win at either the Valero Texas Open or the Charles Schwab Challenge.


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    19. A product of the DP World Tour top 10 will win before America's Independence Day. Matthieu Pavon (Farmers Insurance Open) and Robert MacIntyre (RBC Canadian Open, Genesis Scottish Open) proved their mettle and validated the bona fides of the DP World Tour players with three quick victories for the new pathway in ’24.

    20. Bernhard Langer, 67, who came back from a torn Achilles to break his own age record for the fifth time with a victory at the Charles Schwab Cup Championship in November, will win for the 19th straight year on PGA TOUR Champions.

    21. Europe will lead going into the Sunday singles session at the Ryder Cup at Bethpage Black, but the U.S. will rally to win the session and win back the Ryder Cup.

    22. PGA TOUR Rookie of the Year Nick Dunlap will make the U.S. Ryder Cup squad.

    23. Forty-somethings, who got skunked and failed to win a tournament in 2024 following Lucas Glover's back-to-back wins in 2023, will bounce back with at least one victory.

    24. Ludvig Åberg, who had off-season surgery to repair a meniscus tear in his left knee and returned to action at The RSM Classic, will get his second and third TOUR wins.

    25. The winner of the TOUR Championship and FedExCup will be … Hovland, who will bounce back from a blah season to raise the trophy for the second time in three years.

    Cameron Morfit is a Staff Writer for the PGA TOUR. He has covered rodeo, arm-wrestling, and snowmobile hill climb in addition to a lot of golf. Follow Cameron Morfit on Twitter.