Who has impressed so far? Rory to challenge Scottie? Answering the big PGA Tour questions

The 2025 PGA Tour season is six tournaments in, with the Genesis Invitational up next at Torrey Pines, where it was moved following the wildfires in the Los Angeles area.

With the West Coast swing nearing an end, we’re looking at some of what we’ve seen from the early part of the season. Who has been impressive? What have we learned so far? Latest on when we might see Tiger Woods?

ESPN.com golf reporter Mark Schlabach and Paolo Uggetti answer some of the big questions from the start of the season.

What’s one big takeaway you have from the early part of the golf season?

Mark Schlabach: It’s good for the PGA Tour to have Rory McIlroy playing great golf again. While Scottie Scheffler’s dominance in 2024 made for one of the most memorable seasons in history, the fact that no one outside of Xander Schauffele rose up to challenge him made things somewhat anticlimactic.

Rory has the game and guts to challenge Scheffler, and his performance at the Pebble Beach Pro-Am offers some hope that he’s returning to peak form. The PGA Tour needs superstars (other than Scheffler) winning big tournaments, and there are few names bigger than McIlroy.

I’d throw Justin Thomas and Jordan Spieth in that same category, and their early results in 2025 should give golf fans hope that they’re turning things around (more on that below).

Paolo Uggetti: Venues matter! It feels obvious to say, but there’s a reason the Pebble Beach Pro-Am, the Sentry at Kapalua and the Waste Management Open create compelling tournaments. Whether they are close contests or runaway victories like we saw last week with Thomas Detry in Phoenix, interesting courses make for interesting shots which make for interesting tournaments.

The West Coast swing seems to always deliver, if the weather cooperates. On this topic, we’ll see a drop-off this week when instead of going to Riviera Country Club the tour is headed to Torrey Pines again. Given that the best players in the world will tee it up this time in San Diego, the tournament should still be compelling, but we’ll certainly miss seeing the best in the sport play one of the best courses on tour.

Which player have you been the most impressed with so far?

Schlabach: We saw glimpses of Sepp Straka‘s ability in the past, but the 31-year-old is putting everything together so far this season. He has four top-25s in five starts, including his third PGA Tour victory at the American Express. He tied for seventh at the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am and was 15th at the WM Phoenix Open.

Other than his work around the greens, there isn’t much Straka isn’t doing well right now. He’s fifth in shots gained total (1.816) and approach (1.151) and seventh in tee to green (1.412). Straka has hit 78% of greens in regulation and 71.5% of fairways, which ranks third and eighth on tour, respectively.

Straka picked up Kevin Kisner’s caddie, Duane “Dewey” Bock, in 2023 and it has been a great partnership so far. European Ryder Cup team captain Luke Donald has to be thrilled about what he’s seeing from the Austrian-born Straka this season.

Uggetti: At one point last year, Justin Thomas had dropped all the way down to No. 33 in the World Golf Ranking and looked to be searching for any kind of momentum to get his game back on track. Ever since the Tour Championship, however, it appears Thomas has turned a corner, adding distance to his driver while improving his putting struggles, and he’s starting to see results.

Thomas is coming off a top-5 finish at the Waste Management Open last week, and he also tied for second place at the American Express earlier this year. A T-48 at Pebble Beach is an eyesore, but overall Thomas’ game seems to be trending in the right direction with a much better start to the season than he has had in recent years.

Rory or Scottie: Who will have more wins by the end of the season?

Schlabach: Based on the early results, it looks like Rory is going to have a big year — perhaps he’ll even capture a green jacket at the Masters to finally complete the career Grand Slam. But there’s no way I’m going against the world No. 1 golfer who won seven times last year.

Scheffler’s 2025 campaign got off to a late start because of a Christmas cooking accident that caused him to need surgery on his right palm. After being sidelined for about a month, he came back from the long layoff and tied for ninth at the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am and for 25th at the WM Phoenix Open.

Scottie’s swing looks good, and it’s only going to get better with more reps. The tour is about to hit its Florida swing, and Scheffler has already won twice at both the Arnold Palmer Invitational and the Players Championship. He’ll win more than everyone else again in 2025.

Uggetti: There’s something about the way McIlroy surgically made his way around Pebble Beach for his first PGA Tour win of the season that struck me as encouraging for the rest of his year. His driver was a weapon, as always, but the way he struck his wedges and did not make any big mistakes throughout the course of four rounds was impressive.

The question of whether he can finally win another major will continue to loom over him, but I feel like his level of golf is so high right now that any time he tees it up this year, he’ll be able to make his way into contention. The smart money might be on Scheffler, but I’ll settle for the No. 3 player in the world.

It’s a long way off, but any early Ryder Cup thoughts after the start of the season?

Schlabach: If JT and Jordan Spieth can maintain their current form, there won’t be much of an argument about sending them to Bethpage Black, and that can only be a good thing for the U.S. team to have two of its most accomplished veterans there and playing well.

Spieth’s left wrist injury was apparently worse than he was willing to admit to the media, but it was probably the biggest reason for his mediocre form the past couple of seasons. After a five-month layoff following his August surgery, he tied for fourth at TPC Scottsdale, which moved him from 84th to 65th in the world rankings.

Spieth was second in approach and scrambling and 13th in putting at Phoenix. He had just two bogeys in 72 holes. That’s promising.

As Paolo mentioned above, JT has been playing better golf since the end of last year. He was runner-up at the American Express and tied for sixth in Phoenix. It seems like his nearly three-year drought without a victory is about to end.

The PGA Tour needs superstars (other than Scheffler) winning tournaments, and Thomas and Spieth rebounding would be big.

Uggetti: Keegan Bradley is going to make a genuine run at a player-captain role. Bradley, who was the surprise choice to lead the American team at Bethpage Black in September, is the 13th-ranked player in the world right now. He has started his 2025 season with three top-15 finishes and is playing some of the best golf of his career going back to last season. He has already made a point to say that he won’t select himself as a captain’s pick, meaning he’d need to finish in the top six among all Americans to qualify automatically.

It’s early, and Keegan is currently ranked 20th, but it wouldn’t take much to see him shoot up that leaderboard. What’s more: If he continues his level of play throughout the year and sits just outside the top six, there might be some chatter about him deserving a spot regardless.

Tournament host Tiger Woods was in the Genesis Invitational field but then withdrew on Monday, saying in a statement that he was still processing the death of his mother, Kultida Woods, who passed away on Feb. 4. When can we expect to see Tiger on the course again?

Schlabach: I was somewhat surprised Tiger was even in the Genesis Invitational field on Friday. But a few days after the tournament, which benefits Woods’ TGR Foundation, announced Woods was in the field and intended to play, he said on X that he’s still processing his mother’s death and won’t play.

Tiger hasn’t played since he missed the cut at The Open at Royal Troon in Scotland in July. He had microdecompression surgery on his lumbar spine to relieve pain in his lower back in mid-September, which is believed to be his sixth back procedure in the past 10 years, so he’s making another comeback from injury on top of everything else.

Although it’s a missed opportunity for reps in competition, Woods’ decision is certainly understandable. Maybe we’ll see him play in the Arnold Palmer Invitational presented by Mastercard at Bay Hill in Orlando, Florida, on March 6-9. Tiger won the API eight times, most recently in back-to-back tournaments in 2012-13.

I can’t imagine Tiger wouldn’t play before the Masters on April 10-13.

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