The 2025 Audit: What the Numbers Really Tell Us About Golf’s Elite

We’re two months into 2026 now, and the tour is finally starting to look like itself again. With Rory McIlroy back in the signature event fields and the competitive landscape settling, it’s the perfect time to take a hard look at what the 2025 season actually meant for professional golf’s biggest names.

I’ve spent 35 years watching these guys swing sticks for a living—caddied for Tom Lehman, sat in press boxes from Augusta to Auckland—and I can tell you that year-end statistical audits don’t lie. They reveal patterns that even the players themselves sometimes miss until they sit down with their coaches in January. What I’m seeing in the 2025 data is a tour in flux, with some familiar names rediscovering their games while others face some genuine questions heading into the stretch run of their careers.

The Drivers Are Writing the Story

Let me start with what jumped out at me immediately: the off-the-tee narrative. We had some remarkable reversals in 2025, and I think this is where you see the real separation between who’s trending up and who needs to worry.

Rickie Fowler’s resurrection off the tee—gaining 90 strokes on the field after losing strokes in 2024—is legitimately impressive. At 37 years old, guys don’t usually rediscover that kind of consistency with the driver. I’ve watched Rickie’s career arc, and he’s always had the talent to compete with anyone. What this tells me is that when you fix one fundamental piece, the rest of your game has permission to follow. Fowler’s improvement validates something I’ve always believed: you can’t manufacture consistency off the tee at his age unless something significant has changed in your approach or equipment.

“After losing strokes off the tee for the first time in his career in 2024, Fowler fought back in a major way. The former Players Championship winner experienced his best driving season since 2018 and set up the rest of his game, allowing him to gain strokes throughout the bag.”

That’s not luck. That’s work.

On the flip side, Xander Schauffele’s -91 off the tee is more complicated than the headline suggests. The injury to start the year, the new driver adjustment, the Florida swing with all that water—these are legitimate mitigating factors. But here’s what concerns me:

“There were a few factors to go into Schauffele’s decline: (1) he had a monster 2024 season, (2) he was injured to start 2025 and (3) when he did return, he did so in the state of Florida (i.e. a lot of water on those golf courses) with a new driver in hand, which he ultimately bagged.”

A two-time major champion shouldn’t lose that much consistency off the tee, even with extenuating circumstances. That said, his late-season win in Japan and early-2026 form suggest he’s finding his rhythm again. I’m not worried about Xander long-term, but 2025 is a data point worth remembering.

The Short Game Divides Winners From The Rest

In my experience, chipping and pitching separates the truly great from the merely very good. It’s where character shows up in a scorecard.

Keegan Bradley’s +92 around the green shouldn’t surprise anyone who’s been paying attention. The 39-year-old U.S. Ryder Cup captain is a guy who’s always made his living with precision and touch. His improvement in this area—combined with strong ball-striking—makes him relevant in 2026 in ways he might not have been otherwise. But Collin Morikawa is on the opposite end, and this concerns me more:

“Morikawa was insistent throughout the year that his iron play needed to improve, and that’s tough to argue. It ranked fourth out of his six full-time seasons on the PGA Tour, even though he ranked third overall in the league. While that may be up for debate, what isn’t is his short game. Morikawa proved incapable of keeping up with the big names on days when his ball striking went awry.”

That’s the issue in a nutshell. In major championships and signature events, your short game is your insurance policy when ball-striking isn’t perfect. Morikawa’s a talented kid, but he needs to understand that ranking third overall while having a deficiency in the area that matters most in tight tournaments is a luxury he won’t have forever.

The Putting Renaissance

Now here’s something genuinely exciting: the putting improvements across the board. Justin Thomas going from a bottom-11 putter to inside the top 30? That’s not incremental. That’s transformational. And Cameron Young’s improvement—even though Thomas had better raw numbers—might have more implications for the future.

Young went from Rookie of the Year to getting a look at majors as a legitimate contender. That’s the power of fixing the putter. In my years on tour, I’ve seen guys’ entire careers change because they finally figured out the stroke that matters most when the pressure’s on. Young’s Wyndham Championship win and his Ryder Cup performance suggest he’s not a one-year story.

But Scottie Scheffler’s improvement is perhaps the scariest development in professional golf. A guy who was already world No. 1 employed the claw grip from 15 feet and essentially made himself unbeatable. That’s not fair. That’s not even legal. (Joking, of course.)

Looking Ahead

What strikes me about the 2025 audit is that it tells a story of a tour in transition. Young talent is breaking through, aging veterans are finding new ways to compete, and the margin for error at the top remains razor-thin. The players who made meaningful changes—Fowler with his driver, Bradley with his short game, Thomas with his putter—are the ones trending up as we head deeper into 2026.

That’s the real story here. It’s not about what happened. It’s about who learned something and acted on it.