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If you’re like me, your first reaction to this headline is bafflement: The season’s halfway over???
But yes, somehow we’re there, at least if you measure the season from the Sentry to the Tour Championship … which you should, since that’s the PGA Tour season. That feels wrong, of course, with three majors and the Ryder Cup still to come, but we’re talking tour here, and when you think about it, we’ve seen our share of action in the first 17 weeks of the season. Ratings are up, drama is high and droughts are being broken. Now it’s time to look at the story from the numbers side. Here at the halfway point, with 17 weeks until the Tour Championship, these are the seven stats that have defined the PGA Tour season so far, telling the story of a wild 2025.
Rory McIlroy—No. 1 in SG/Tee to Green (1.725)
Photo by JD Cuban
It wasn’t easy to know what stat to pick from McIlroy. For one thing, he’s literally always good off the tee. In fact, in his entire career he’s never finished worse than sixth in SG/Off the Tee, and pound for pound he’s been the game’s best driver for a decade. But to explain his dominance this year, it’s necessary to go beyond that to the ultimate ball-striking stat: SG/Tee to Green. This better reflects the variety of his wins. For instance, when he won Pebble, he was first in SG/Off the Tee, gaining an absurd 1.49 strokes per round. But at the Players, he was “only” 17th, and just 13th at Augusta National (that one calculated by Data Golf). But at the Players, he was fifth in SG/Approach, and at Augusta, he was first. All of which means that his iron play is more perfectly complementing his always superb off-the-tee game, and that’s why, for the first time in three years, the leader in this ball-striking category is someone other than Scottie Scheffler.
RELATED: Rory details whirlwind week after his Masters win
Justin Thomas—No. 24 in SG/Putting (0.459)
Matthew Maxey/Icon Sportswire
This doesn’t seem especially profound, right? Well, consider Thomas’ rankings the previous six years: 174, 135, 85, 104, 112, 144. In short, he’s always been a below average putter on tour, and now he’s in the top 25. That’s an incredible turnaround, and while he’s still struggling off the tee, it’s that putting prowess that allowed him to win in Hilton Head. It’s a mind-blowing turnaround to go from losing strokes consistently to gaining almost half a stroke on the field every time you tee it up, and he can apparently thank Xander Schauffele, at least in part. As Luke Kerr-Dineen wrote, though, he seems to have gone back to basics and found the kind of touch he’s never shown before at the pro level.
Collin Morikawa—No. 2 in SG/Approach (1.09)
JD Cuban
Granted, he still hasn’t won, and he doesn’t like the media anymore, but the sneaky story of this tour season is how consistently good Morikawa has been. Just like in his glory days, it begins and ends with his irons; there was a time, pre-Scheffler, when Morikawa looked like he might be the best iron player since Tiger, but he slipped to 42nd last year, and with it came a slip to 20th in the World Ranking. Now he’s back, just percentage points behind Sepp Straka for the tour lead in approach (and back to fourth in the World), and that means his return to the winner’s circle is a matter of when, not if.
Maverick McNealy—Tied for No. 1 in Top-10 Finishes (5)
Michael Owens
OK, bear with me on this one. You haven’t heard a TON about Maverick McNealy this year, right? So, what if I told you he’s No. 10 in the World Ranking? Is that not mind-blowing? The first time I noticed this, a few weeks ago, I thought it had to be a mistake. But no, there he is, firmly ensconced in the top 10 with nine other guys who are way more famous. It started with McNealy when he won the RSM at the end of last year, but what he’s done in 2025 so far is almost more remarkable than that single victory. In short, the man is always in the mix. Well, usually—he’s had two missed cuts and wasn’t great at the Masters, but he lurks so often! I mean, he has two T-3s in the last month, and I bet you didn’t know it! What’s wild about this is that he’s just OK in most major stats, right down to scoring average (31st) and SG/total (23rd). He just finds a way.
European winners (7) to American winners (6)
Andrew Redington
It’s a Ryder Cup year, so you better believe we’re talking Americans vs. Euros, and despite how close those numbers look (sorry, I’m not counting the Zurich team event), it actually underscores how dominant Europe has looked. If you sort for signature events, the Players, and majors, the score goes to 4-2. Does it mean anything in terms of who’s going to win at Bethpage? Definitely not. Has it made European fans unduly cocky? 100 percent. Apparently this is what happens when Scheffler is having a sorta/kinda off year.
Viktor Hovland—104th in Scoring Average
Harry How
Remember how when Hovland won the Valspar (this feels like six years ago after all we’ve endured), he acted like his game was trash and winning was a complete anomaly that he couldn’t explain? Wellllll … it seems like he was right. He hasn’t had a great year by almost any metric except that one where he finished first in a tournament. The scoring average is probably the best indicator, but if you’re looking for a silver lining, DataGolf has him seventh in true Strokes Gained on approaches, and he did OK at the Heritage and the Masters. He’s not back, but you can squint your eyes and see the road to back. Until then, though, the Valspar win does seem like the flukiest result of the year.
Scottie Scheffler—T-44 in SG/Putting
JD Cuban
What does this stat have to do with anything? Well, part of any good stats post this year is trying to find an explanation for why Scheffler hasn’t won yet in 2025, and what this stat shows is that contrary to what you might think, Scheffler is quietly having his best putting year relative to other players … ever. Truly, he’s never been ranked this high before. When you consider that he has the second-best scoring average and second-best SG/total (trailing Rory in both), this putting stat makes it abundantly clear that what keeps him from winning is just a fluke of result variability. There is genuinely nothing you can find (or at least that I could find) that looks even vaguely like a red flag. In short, all the numbers point to a “progression to the mean”—expect him to win, and win soon. This week at the CJ Cup Byron Nelson, where he’s essentially the only top player showing up, seems like a good place to start.
Main Image: Stephen Denton
