The Five: 2025 New Year’s resolutions for top TOUR players

PGA TOUR pros are just like the rest of us.

OK, maybe not on the golf course, but certainly off of it. And as 2025 gets rolling, many of us have set New Year’s resolutions. So as a new season on TOUR kicks off, it feels fitting to prescribe New Year’s resolutions for some of the game’s top players.

Like any good New Year’s resolutions list, some are more attainable than others. The fun will be finding which will hit and which may end up back on a TOUR player’s list heading into 2025.

Scottie Scheffler: Solidify the last puzzle piece… short putting

If there was a weakness in Scottie Scheffler’s historic 2024 season, it was his short putting. From inside 10 feet, the runaway world No. 1 was, at best, mediocre.

Scheffler ranked 139th on the PGA TOUR in make percentage from inside 10 feet. It was one of his lone deficiencies with the flat stick as he made putts more frequently than TOUR average at almost all other distances (10-15 feet, 15-20 feet, 20-25 feet and 25+ feet).

But in classic Scheffler fashion, he’s already overachieving on his 2025 resolution without even teeing it up. He debuted a new approach at the Hero World Challenge in December, switching from his conventional putting grip to a claw grip on any putts from around 15 feet and in. It worked wonderfully, Scheffler was rock-solid on his short putts and rode that to a breezy six-shot victory. He missed two putts from inside 10 feet for the week.

“Competition's just a slightly different animal,” Scheffler said. “It was good to come out here and compete and play under pressure, play with the lead, play close to the lead most of the week, and I felt really comfortable.”

Scheffler expected to utilize the same strategy at The Sentry, but his season debut was delayed due to an injury on Christmas Day. Scheffler sustained a wound to the palm of his right hand from a broken glass. Small glass fragments remained in the palm which required surgery.

“He has been told that he should be back to 100% in three to four weeks,” Scheffler’s manager, Blake Smith, said in a statement.

Subsequently, Scheffler has also withdrawn from The American Express to allow more time for his injury to heal.

We do not know where he'll start his 2025 season, but if the Hero was any indication, the Texan might have already shored up his biggest weakness and hope to complete his resolution.

Collin Morikawa: Keep the momentum going on Sundays

Collin Morikawa made a name for himself on TOUR because of his ability to close. He shot the best round of the day, a 6-under 64 in the final round of the 2020 PGA Championship to claim his first major championship. He shot 4-under 68 on the final day of The 2021 Open Championship to nab his second major in just his sixth start. He was defined by those signature Sunday moments.

But in 2024, Morikawa had a Sunday problem.

The six-time TOUR winner ranked 127th in Round 4 scoring average last season, a stark outlier to the rest of his week in which Morikawa was marketably above average. In a year that Morikawa was searching for answers for why he went winless, his Sunday performances are an easy place to start. Here’s his scoring breakdown by round:

Morikawa was more than two shots worse in final rounds than during opening rounds. Some of that can be explained away by tournament conditions, which typically harden as the week plays out, along with the pressure of final rounds, which naturally inflate scores. But the statistics bore out in some of the biggest moments.

Here’s where Morikawa started and ended final rounds at the 2024 Signature Events and major championships (excluding the Arnold Palmer Invitational presented by Mastercard, where he missed the cut). After a strong start to the season, he regressed in the middle of the year.

In the 12 regular season Signature Events and majors that Morikawa made the cut, he only improved his position on the leaderboard on the final day three times. Just one of those came after the first two months of the season.

Morikawa was thrown right into the fire with an early chance to avenge this trend at The Sentry last week. He shot 67 on Sunday, more than a shot and a half better than the final-round scoring average (68.675). It was a statistical improvement, and Morikawa hung in well, but he never truly threatened Matsuyama for more than a hole or two on the back nine after early stumbles. Morikawa missed putts of 6 feet for birdie on the fifth, 6 feet for par on the sixth and 12 feet for birdie on the ninth as Matsuyama led by four shots to begin the back nine. Morikawa began the day in second and finished in second.

He left winless again.

“There was a good handful (of shots) that I wish I could have back,” Morikawa said. “When you don't get it done, that's where your mind goes to.”

Rory McIlroy: End the drought

It’s rather simple for Rory McIlroy, but that doesn’t make it any easier. Surely there is an area or two in his game that needs improving but it’s hard to look at micro goals when the macro goal is staring you right in the face.

McIlroy’s 2025 resolution is to win a major championship, a goal he hasn’t been able to check off his New Year’s list for 11 years running. McIlroy has been stuck at the four-major mark since 2014. Thirty-nine majors have come and gone since his last victory at the 2014 PGA Championship. He’s done pretty much everything else in that time, winning 22 times worldwide, leading the Europeans to multiple Ryder Cup victories and sitting atop the world ranking.

But as his major drought continues, one must wonder how much of that he’d trade for major No. 5.

“Obviously getting my hands on a fifth major has taken quite a while, but I'm more confident than ever that I'm right there, that I'm as close as I've ever been,” McIlroy said.

That was Tuesday of the U.S. Open, five days before he’d come closer to grabbing No. 5 than ever before. However, we know how that ended.

To McIlroy’s credit, he’s remained steadfast that it will come. His peers echo the same sentiment. It’s become a yearly tradition for Tiger Woods and others to wax poetic about McIlroy’s inevitable Masters victory, the lone missing link for the career Grand Slam. Those talks will continue again in April. The PGA Championship will be played at the friendly confines of Quail Hollow, where McIlroy has won two Truist Championship titles, offering another golden opportunity. The Open Championship heads to Royal Portrush in his home of North Ireland, a course he has played since he was 10 years old.

The chances will be there again in 2025 for McIlroy. Is this the year it finally ends and the resolution can finally get checked off?

Xander Schauffele: Tighten up the wedge play

It wasn’t hard to craft this resolution for Xander Schauffele, considering the world No. 2 admitted it in his first press conference of 2025. Asked what stuck out from a look at his 2024 statistics, Schauffele said…

“My wedge play sucked. It was really bad. Really, really bad.”

How bad is “really, really bad?” Well, Schauffele ranked 171st on TOUR on approaches from 50-125 yards, a jarring statistic given he still finished sixth in Strokes Gained: Approach and won two major championships. But that goes to show the disparity between Schauffele’s wedges and the rest of his irons, and explains his blunt assessment.

It’s in stark contrast to the rest of Schauffele’s career, in which his wedges have almost always been a strength. Schauffele said it was a byproduct of the swing changes made to add more distance. While it’s been a surefire success off the tee, it’s come at the cost of his wedge play.

“With my club pitched a little bit more vertical in my back swing it's not catering to the best – it's great for driver, great for long irons, the stats show that -- then, with wedges it's, you know, the club's moving around a little bit, it's not ideal for hitting like a distance wedge,” Schauffele said.

Even still, the swing helped him reach heights he’d never achieved before with breakthrough victories at the PGA Championship and The Open Championship. Asked if he was good with that tradeoff, Schauffele said, “I'm working through it. If I can find something in the middle I will, but maybe I just need to practice my wedges a lot more.”

That makes this exercise pretty simple. Bringing those wedges back to an average TOUR level would make this a successful resolution.

Viktor Hovland: Find consistency outside the ropes

Viktor Hovland has always been a tinkerer. It’s partly why he’s on the PGA TOUR and achieved the success he’s had. The Norweigan has never been afraid to change and has gone everywhere looking for it. He learned the golf swing by bingeing YouTube videos and had his most successful season after finding his coach Joe Mayo through Instagram videos.

It was also partly why he struggled in 2024. After winning the BMW Championship and the FedExCup in 2023, Hovland took a step back last year. He split with Mayo before the start of the year and trialed several different coaches and swing tips. Midway through the year, he reunited with Mayo and immediately finished runner-up at the PGA Championship, but the consistency never returned.

Hovland failed to win on TOUR for the first time in four seasons and recorded a career-low in top 10s and top 25s. Then he split with Mayo again this offseason, which Hovland confirmed to the Norweigan outlet Norsk Golf last week.

If it was the right or wrong decision is only for Hovland to decide. He enters 2025 in what should be the prime of his career at age 27. Still eighth in the Official World Golf Ranking, Hovland is far from the wilderness, but he’s not where he wants to be.

Hovland’s success will be defined by his results, but to get there he will also need to find consistency outside the ropes, whether that’s from a new swing coach or just from himself. If he achieves that, at least his resolution will be a success.

“I have to go down some rabbit holes to find my way,” Hovland told Norsk Golf. “It is a process that is not easy, but I am learning a lot. And it is my own responsibility to take in the correct information.”