Scheffler's two majors propelled him to victory in the Tour's year-end awards.
It takes a lot of work to wrest the PGA Tour’s Player of the Year award away from a guy who claimed the career Grand Slam, but Scottie Scheffler put in a whole lot of work in 2025. With all respect to Rory McIlroy and his legacy-sealing Masters victory, Scheffler’s six wins, including two majors, made him an easy choice to win his fourth straight Jack Nicklaus Award as Player of the Year.
Aldritch Potgieter, one of five rookies to win a PGA Tour event this season, won the Arnold Palmer Award as the Tour’s Rookie of the Year.
Just three months after McIlroy closed off his own career Grand Slam in April, Scheffler began the pursuit of his in earnest by winning both the PGA Championship at Quail Hollow and the Open Championship at Royal Portrush. Scheffler won the PGA by five strokes over Bryson DeChambeau, Harris English and Davis Riley, and the Open by four strokes over English. Scheffler is the first golfer since John Henry Taylor in 1909 to win his first four majors by three strokes or more. Since the development of the world rankings in 1986, he and Tiger Woods are the only players to win the Open Championship while ranked World No. 1.
Scheffler won six times on Tour in 2025, even though he didn’t claim his first victory until May as he recovered from an injury suffered last Christmas. He won the CJ Cup Byron Nelson, the Memorial, the BMW and the Procore Championship, in addition to both majors, over a four-plus-month stretch in 2025.
The statistical landmarks keep piling up for Scheffler. He won the Byron Nelson Award for the lowest scoring average on Tour (68.131) for the third consecutive year, and he ranked first in scoring average for all four rounds for the full season — the first player since Woods in 2000 to achieve that feat. He made every cut and finished inside the top 25 in all 20 of his starts. Scheffler already ranks third on the PGA Tour’s career money list, behind only McIlroy and Woods.
Potgieter claimed his first PGA Tour victory at the Rocket Classic at just 20 years old, the ninth youngest Tour winner since the 1983 season. He won a three-man playoff against Chris Kirk and Max Greyserman. He led the PGA Tour in driving distance at 325 yards for the entire season, and was the only rookie to qualify for the 2025 FedEx Cup playoffs. He still has not played in a PGA Championship, and has never made the cut in the Masters or the Open Championship.
Both awards were voted on by the Tour’s players, and Scheffler bested fellow nominees Tommy Fleetwood, Ben Griffin and McIlroy. Four other rookies were nominated alongside Potgieter: Michael Brennan, Steven Fisk, William Mouw and Karl Vilips.
Category: General Sports
