Opening Drive: Will these five notable trends continue on PGA TOUR in 2025?

Parity is king in golf, and variability is the rule. With ever-changing weather, course conditions and course demands, it’s hard enough to replicate your swing from round to round, let alone maintain uniformity from tournament to tournament and year to year. New stars emerge, others fall short of expectations. Churn is inherent to the sport.

But that doesn’t stop trends from emerging, once you pull back and look at the bigger picture. With a new season on the horizon, those trends can be especially helpful in looking ahead and perhaps even in making some correct predictions, as we like to do around here.

So, as we flip the calendar and get ready to kick off the 2025 PGA TOUR season with The Sentry at the Plantation Course in Kapalua, Maui, here’s a look at what recent history tells us will happen in the new year.

History says … someone will outdo or equal Scottie Scheffler

You have to go back to 2009 to find the last time a player led the PGA TOUR outright in victories in back-to-back seasons. Tiger Woods did it then, though it was actually his fifth consecutive season leading the TOUR in victories. He won five times in 2005, eight times in ‘06, seven times in ‘07, four times in ‘08 and six times in ‘09 – another absurd statistic for a man that has accumulated many.

Since then, though, no player has sat atop the wins mantle alone in consecutive years. Some have shared it. Jason Day was tied for most wins in both 2015 and ‘16, and Justin Thomas did the same in ‘17 and ‘18, but nobody has led outright in consecutive seasons.

In other words, parity reigns supreme and nobody (other than Woods) is immune. Which leads us to this: Who will outdo Scheffler?

It seems like a tall order, especially after his romp at the Hero World Challenge in December, which did not count among his seven official PGA TOUR victories. Nor did his Olympic gold medal in Paris.

He begins 2025 as the unquestioned top player in the game and a three-time defending Player of the Year. It’s fair to believe Scheffler could be the one to break the aforementioned trend. He’s been setting records of his own and drawing Woods comparisons, so maybe it’s fitting that he’s the one to buck the trend that hasn’t been broken since Woods. However, if history is a reliable guide, then the most obvious choice to top the victories ledger in '25 is ... Xander Schauffele.

History says … another young star will emerge victorious

At The American Express, Nick Dunlap became the first amateur to win on TOUR in over three decades, but his youthfulness was hardly historic. Dunlap was just the latest in a litany of breakthrough winners in their early 20s.

In fact, at least one player 22 years old or younger has won on the PGA TOUR in each of the last 10 years. The list includes prominent players like Akshay Bhatia, Tom Kim, Viktor Hovland, Collin Morikawa, Jon Rahm, Justin Thomas and Jordan Spieth, all of whom have sustained early-career success, plus others like Garrick Higgo and Aaron Wise.

Junior and college golfers have never been stronger or more sophisticated as young players who would normally need several years to acclimate to the pro game are finding success immediately. Miles Russell, 15, played in a pair of PGA TOUR events and became the youngest to make a cut and finish inside the top 25 on the Korn Ferry Tour. Sixteen-year-old Kris Kim made the cut at THE CJ CUP Byron Nelson. Blades Brown announced in December he is turning professional out of high school. The youth wave has been on TOUR for a decade, a long enough sample to know it’s sticking around and should likely shed the “wave” distinction altogether.

So, who will break through this year? Inherent in this topic is the fact that it likely will come from a place we aren’t expecting. Nick Dunlap was a sophomore in college when he won. It could come from anywhere, but here are a few obvious contenders:

• Luke Clanton, 21: The Florida State junior came close a few times in 2024, finishing runner-up at the John Deere Classic and The RSM Classic. He’s No. 1 in the World Amateur Golf Ranking and is already inside the top 100 in the Official World Golf Ranking despite playing only eight pro tournaments in ‘24.
• Aldrich Potgieter, 20: Part of the incoming class of Korn Ferry Tour graduates, the long-driving South African won his first pro event last year on the Korn Ferry Tour and nearly won late in 2024 at the Nedbank Golf Challenge in his home country. He will immediately be one of the longest players on the PGA TOUR, a helpful skill when it comes to racking up trophies.
• Tom McKibbin, 21: The Northern Irishman is from the same hometown, Holywood, as Rory McIlroy and hopes to follow in his idol’s footsteps with a win early in his TOUR career. McKibbin earned his TOUR card through the DP World Tour’s Race to Dubai standings, and could be the next European after Matthieu Pavon and Robert MacIntyre to find immediate success on TOUR.

History says … expect at least one first-time major winner

In 2024, it was Schauffele. The year before him, it was Brian Harman and Wyndham Clark. Before them, it was Scheffler, Matt Fitzpatrick and Cameron Smith. We could keep going, but this section would get really long. We’re talking about first-time major winners, which have become more common than uncommon.

Since 2001, there’s only been one season where at least one of the four major championship winners wasn’t a first-timer. That was in 2014, which featured McIlroy winning his third and fourth majors at The Open Championship and PGA Championship, respectively. Bubba Watson and Martin Kaymer each won his second major that year, too.

Over those 24 years, 56% of the major winners (53 of 95) were first-timers. So the odds tell us there will be at least one coming in 2025.

The list of “best players without a major” took a hit with Schauffele leaving its ranks, but there are plenty in the current crop that you could see lifting some hardware next year. Among them are: Ludvig Åberg, Viktor Hovland, Tommy Fleetwood, Patrick Cantlay, Sahith Theegala, Sam Burns, Tom Kim and Max Homa.

History says … the world’s top 10 will change

Between Scottie Scheffler, Xander Schauffele and Rory McIlroy, it can sometimes seem as though the top 10 were set in stone.

Far from it.

Looking year-over-year through the last decade, the top 10 players in the world via the OWGR see a churn of 3.6 players per year. In other words, an average of three to four players per year move in or out of the top 10 from Jan. 1 to Dec. 31. At the outset of 2024, Morikawa, Åberg, Hideki Matsuyama, Fleetwood and Bryson DeChambeau were outside the top 10. They all finished the year inside it.

This isn’t a one-year phenomenon. In three of the last 10 years, half of the top 10 has changed. None of the years saw fewer than two players move in and out.

So take a snapshot of the top 10 in the world right now …

1. Scottie Scheffler
2. Xander Schauffele
3. Rory McIlroy
4. Collin Morikawa
5. Ludvig Åberg
6. Wyndham Clark
7. Hideki Matsuyama
8. Viktor Hovland
9. Tommy Fleetwood
10. Bryson DeChambeau

History tells us it won’t look the same a year from now.

History says … home field at the Ryder Cup will reign supreme

The Ryder Cup is one of the top sporting events in the world for many reasons – history, passion and pageantry chief among them. But, sneakily, one of those reasons is not for the actual competitiveness of the event.

The home team has won 10 of the past 12 Ryder Cups, and it’s been 13 years since the last visiting team prevailed – the Europeans' “Miracle at Medinah” victory. Only four of the last 12 Ryder Cups have had a winning margin of three or fewer points.

In the aftermath of Europe’s 16.5-11.5 victory at Marco Simone Golf and Country Club in 2023, Rory McIlroy said: “I think one of the biggest accomplishments in golf right now is winning an away Ryder Cup.”

Then he said the part that caught all the headlines: “And that’s what we’re going to do at Bethpage.”

The scant recent precedent for away Ryder Cup victories have all featured a whole lot of singing and chanting for Europe, which won the 2004 Ryder Cup at Oakland Hills (in a landslide) and the 2012 Ryder Cup at Medinah Country Club. That said, the U.S. has stomped Europe in the last two Ryder Cups at home, winning by six points in 2016 and a record 10 points in 2021.

Anticipation is already building for the 2025 Ryder Cup at Bethpage Black, where Europe will be riding the high of their 2023 victory, with plenty of those players still in their primes. But will it matter? It hasn’t for most of the last 20 years, and likely won't this time, either.