Telfer's Thoughts 24.12.254

So the curtain has come down on another golfing year. The game’s best players have put their clubs in the garage for a couple of weeks which means it’s time to dish out a few awards.

Who’s really called the shots in 2025?

The most prestigious award is the PGA Player Of The Year.

In reality there were only two contenders for this title, Scottie Scheffler and Rory McIlroy.

Normally any player good enough to best his rivals for two Majors in the same year, as Scottie Scheffler did in 2025, would be hands down the Player of the Year.

But wait.

What about the calendar credentials this year which belong to Rory McIlroy. His winning of The Masters in April at Augusta was quite clearly the single most memorable victory by any golfer in 2025. His win made Rory just the sixth player in history to win all four Majors and the first to do it since Tiger Woods some 20-odd years earlier.

McIlroy, the game’s most popular player, had been trying in vain for a decade to win The Masters and join golf’s most exclusive club. When he sank the winning putt on the 18th green on the last day, Rory’s palpable relief was echoed by golf fans in every corner of the globe. McIlroy wasn’t done in 2025 with just that elusive Major. A few months later his other big dream and hope for 2025 was the Ryder Cup, played this year on American soil. The Europeans got the job done, thanks in no small way to the efforts of McIlroy, whose play was as sublime as it was inspirational. The win came at no small cost. In a staggering about face, McIlroy, the darling of the American galleries at Augusta, was now the villain of Bethpage, as thousands of angry New Yorkers booed, jeered and insulted the European players. Singled out for especially vindictive abuse was McIlroy. Even his wife had a drinking cup thrown at her.

This was an especially dark chapter in the long history of the Ryder Cup, crowd hooliganism at big sporting events no longer, it appears, just the shameful hallmark of European football.

Anyway for all of McIlroy’s triumphs it was, fittingly enough, Scottie Scheffler who took out the Player of the Year award.

On tournaments won, no-one touched Scheffler. He had six wins in 2025, including two Majors.

End of story.

He has now won the Jack Nicklaus Player of the Year trophy four years in a row. The only other player to achieve this four straight run was, yes, Tiger Woods, who won this title every year from 1999-2003.

With every win and every Major Scheffler wins these days, comparisons with Woods inevitably creep into the golfing narrative.

So it’s probably worth recalling that Scheffler has so far racked up 19 US Tour wins, Tiger has 82 next to his name and 15 Majors.

Back here, NZ Golf has had a very good year thanks to Ryan Fox on the USPGA Tour where he won twice in 2025 at the Myrtle Beach Classic in May, then the much sought-after Canadian Open a month later. It’s a very special club reserved for golfers winning twice or more in the one year on the US Tour, which is why Foxy’s world ranking soared during this period from around 100 to inside the top 40 and that’s about where he sits at year’s end. He's had a much-deserved long break from the rigours of life on tour. Mind you, he hasn’t exactly locked his clubs away as we saw a week or so back, winning his own ambrose event - Fox on the Run - at Royal Auckland and a week earlier playing in a charity event at this writer’s club, Akarana. He shot a course record of 60, just 11 under par. 2026, bring it on, I hear Foxy saying.

Also Daniel Hillier and Kazuma Kobori had really successful seasons on the DP World Tour. As well, Lydia Ko had another really solid year on the US Ladies Tour, picking up another win but she wasn’t able to nail that 4th Major title she’s looking for.

Anyway that’s my lot for 2025. It just remains for me to wish you a very happy Christmas and all the best for 2026. And make sure you enjoy your new golfing year. Remember nothing beats hitting that little white ball towards the hole!