As the PGA Tour heads from New Orleans to Dallas, it also marks the halfway point of its season. Yep, 17 weeks down, 17 to go through the FedEx Cup playoffs and the Tour Championship in August.

After the long run-up to the Masters, things move along a lot more quickly now—over the next eight weeks, there will be three signature events and two major championships.

And then the playoffs begin just three weeks after the final major, the British Open at Royal Portrush.

With that in mind, here’s a look back at the first half of 2025.

Player of the year

Rory McIlroy, without question. In fact, McIlroy will be hard-pressed to not win the season-long honor at this point. Unless someone goes on a run and captures two major championships—certainly possible, Xander Schauffele did it last year—his victories at the Players Championship and Masters along with a win at Pebble Beach are likely to dwarf all else.

Tournament of the year

The Masters is the easy choice. To have McIlroy and U.S. Open champion Bryson DeChambeau in the final group presented two heavyweights in the last pairing. Justin Rose provided the unusual Sunday drama of someone coming from well off the pace to forge a tie. Ludvig Åberg, in just his second Masters, also got into the mix. And McIlroy, trying to complete the career Grand Slam under immense pressure in his 11th try, gave up a two-shot lead, moved ahead by four, gave it all back and trailed by one, then led by one and gave it back before winning in a playoff.

Surprise winner

During the week of the Valspar Championship, Viktor Hovland made yet another coaching change. Even near the top of the leaderboard through 36 holes, he lamented the state of his game which saw him tie for 36th at the season-opening Sentry in Hawaii, miss the cut at the DP World Tour event in Dubai, tie for 22nd at Pebble Beach and then miss consecutive cuts at the Genesis, Arnold Palmer and Players, where he shot a first-round 80. But there was Hovland, overcoming a three-stroke deficit with three holes to play against Justin Thomas to win for the first time since the 2023 Tour Championship.

Nearly man

Collin Morikawa has not won in 18 months but is ranked fourth in the Official World Golf Ranking. How? Because the two-time major winner remains a consistently high finisher although remains frustrated with a lack of victories. Before tying for 54th at the RBC Heritage, Morikawa’s worst finish this year was a pair of 17th-place finishes at Pebble Beach and Genesis. He was second at the Sentry and the Arnold Palmer, tied for 10th at the Players and tied for 14th at the Masters.

Media woes

It was that second-place finish at the Arnold Palmer that led to some unintended consequences for Morikawa, who played a so-so final round, leading for most of the day until Russell Henley chipped in for an eagle on the 16th hole to go from one behind to one ahead. Morikawa declined to talk to the media afterward, somewhat surprising for a usually cooperative and helpful interview subject but perhaps understandable under the circumstances. Two days later, Morikawa explained in great detail his mindset and why he was frustrated. Fair enough. But then, toward the end, Morikawa was asked why he skipped the media session.

“Just heated. Just pissed,” Morikawa said. “Like I don’t owe anyone anything. No offense to you guys, but for me in the moment of that time, I didn’t want to be around anyone. Like, I didn’t want to talk to anyone. I didn’t need any “sorries.” I didn’t need any "good playings." Like, you’re just pissed.

“Honestly, if it was an hour later I would have talked to you guys, but an hour later I was on my way out to here, because I didn’t want to be in Orlando anymore. But I just felt like I put everything I did into the, let’s call it, seven hours of my time being there, right, a few hours before showing up, physio, workout. Look, my entire routine, right. I was just drained.”

The “not owe anyone” part struck a nerve. Morikawa probably would have had no issues had that part been left out. But it produced quite a TV narrative—both Brandel Chamblee and Paul McGinley took issue with Morikawa on Golf Channel—enough that Morikawa doubled down on it, without prompting, later in the week.

Slow starters

It’s been a bit of a strange year to date for reigning player of the year Scottie Scheffler and two-time major winner Xander Schauffele. Neither player has won this year, and neither has come particularly close. They’ve not been bad, they’ve just not been great. And yet, there’s plenty of time. Both had injuries that sidetracked them, Scheffler for a month to start the year and Schauffele for nearly two months following the first tournament. In eight starts this year, Scheffler has five top-10 finishes including a second and a third. Schauffele has one top-10 in six starts but has continued his PGA Tour-leading cut streak to 62.

Biggest disappointment

Since a tie for third at the 2024 Masters, Max Homa has been on a gradual slide which has seen him go from ninth in the Official World Golf Ranking to 69th and in danger of missing the U.S. Open. Homa has talked openly about his struggles—he missed five straight cuts at one point this year—and has split with his caddie, Joe Greiner, saying it wasn’t his decision. Homa managed a tie for 12th at the Masters—which gets him back in next year—but then was 70th out of 72 players at the RBC Heritage.

Toughest defeat

Joel Dahmen led after each of the first three rounds at the opposite-field event in the Dominican Republic and was still leading late into the back nine before he bogeyed the last three holes—including a missed 2-footer on the 17th hole—to lose by one.

LIV Golf’s leader

The LIV Golf League is six events through its 14-tournament schedule with the seventh scheduled this week in South Korea. Joaquin Niemann leads the way and wrapped up a spot in the U.S. Open, which goes to the No. 1 points earner—not already exempt—among the top three of the individual standings through this week’s tournament. Niemann won for the third time this year in Mexico City on Sunday, racing past Bryson DeChambeau, to claim his fifth overall LIV title, tying Brooks Koepka for the most in LIV history. Because Niemann is already exempt for the British Open, that will leave an opening for someone else via points through LIV’s Dallas event in late June.

What about Bryson?

The reigning U.S. Open champion has put together a bit of an odd resume when you consider his major championship success of the last two years. DeChambeau won the U.S. Open at Pinehurst, was second at the PGA Championship and has contended in four of the last five major championships, missing the cut at last year’s Open at Royal Troon.

And yet ... he has not won on LIV Golf in 20 months. He has no victories anywhere since his August 2023 win at the LIV Golf Chicago event, his second of that year.

DeChambeau was the second-round leader in Mexico City but could manage just a final-round 72 and tied for second, three shots back of Niemann. He has three top-six finishes in the six LIV events this year.

Speaking of additive ...

LIV Golf has pushed since the beginning that it is additive to the golf world. Same could be said for TGL, which stands for Tomorrow Golf League, a tech-infused indoor system that got a lot of hype and ESPN exposure for its roughly three-month schedule that concluded in March. With Tiger Woods’s backing—and that of Rory McIlroy—the six-team league mostly delivered on its indoor promise of getting golf fans and those perhaps not attuned to the game something to watch on Monday and Tuesday nights during the winter. There are already talks of expansion, but TGL might first want to tweak some of its technical glitches along with its running time before adding on. Still, it was mostly a good first attempt with more to come.

Tiger’s lost year

The year began with a bit of promise for Tiger Woods, who had back surgery last September and generally looked good at the PNC Championship in December with his son Charlie. That led to some cautious optimism that he might play more this year. And TGL would in theory help. But Woods’s mom, Kultida, passed away Feb. 4, causing him to withdraw from the Genesis Invitational. He admitted at a TGL event later that he had yet to resume practice, meaning he wouldn’t be competing at the Players Championship. And then that week, Woods announced that while training, he ruptured the Achilles tendon in his left ankle, requiring surgery. It meant missing the Masters for the fifth time in 11 years and he’s unlikely to play any official events the rest of the year.

But red has won on Sunday

At least Woods’s new company, Sun Day Red, got a boost via the signing of former Stanford golfer Karl Vilips. The Australian earlier this year inked an endorsement deal and is sporting the Sun Day Red brand. He then went out and won the Puerto Rico Open in only his fourth PGA Tour start and showed himself to be one of the top rookies so far this year on Tour.

Tale of the TV tape

The PGA Tour has seen a nice TV ratings rebound this year after a couple of years of consternation. In general, the ratings are up year over year, although not necessarily back to pre-LIV Golf levels. Some of that is due to frustration with the fracture in the men’s game. Others cite more people playing rather than watching golf. The Masters had a nice spike, 12.7 million viewers, the most-watched final round since 2018. The broadcast peaked at 19.5 million viewers around the time of McIlroy’s playoff victory. LIV Golf got a new TV deal with Fox Sports, but most of the broadcasts so far have been on FS1 or FS2 and in non-advantageous time slots. Its Doral event—the only domestic event to date played live against the PGA Tour’s Valero Texas Open—was outdrawn 4 to 1 despite a strong leaderboard.

Karma award

A day after calling a penalty on himself—his ball barely moved when removing impediments in a waste bunker and there was no video evidence to show it—Justin Thomas won the RBC Heritage, his first PGA Tour victory in nearly three years. At the risk of patting someone on the back for doing what they should do—Bobby Jones had a famous quote about not praising him for robbing a bank when he called a penalty on himself—it was still one of those rules things that makes golf different than other sports.

An early Ryder Cup peek

The Ryder Cup at Bethpage is five months away but already there is plenty of conjecture about how the teams will look. A good bit of sentiment has gone toward the European side, given the success of Rory McIlroy, Ludvig Åberg, Viktor Hovland, Justin Rose, Sepp Straka and Tyrrell Hatton. Throw in Jon Rahm—he will be there—as well as Tommy Fleetwood. There’s room for more. Sergio Garcia, the all-time Ryder Cup points leader? Robert MacIntyre, who performed well as a rookie? The Højgaard twins?

As for the Americans, it’s hard to discount the core of the team: Scottie Scheffler, Xander Schauffele, Collin Morikawa and Justin Thomas are top six in the OWGR and Thomas’s recent victory will help quiet any noise about him. Russell Henley, who won the Arnold Palmer Invitational, proved to be a good partner for Scheffler at the Presidents Cup. It’s tough to envision Patrick Cantlay not being part of another team. Bryson DeChambeau will be there as well. His length and popularity will be assets at Bethpage. Can another LIV player, specifically Brooks Koepka, get there? Daniel Berger and Sam Burns will be in the mix. What about Maverick McNealy? Tony Finau? Akshay Bhatia? Does Patrick Reed have a chance? Long way to go. There are still three major championships, three signature events and two FedEx playoff events to help determine the top six automatic qualifiers.


This article was originally published on www.si.com as Midseason Report: Best Player, Surprise Winner, Toughest Loss and a Ryder Cup Peek .