The past 12 months had a little of everything \u2014\u00a0a career Grand Slam, Ryder Cup chaos and so much more. With 2026 on the horizon, our writers look back at the most memorable moments from 2025 and explain why they mattered.<\/p>\n
No. 15 \u2014\u00a0The zero-torque putter movement<\/a> Stories of 2025 No. 9: Tiger Woods\u2019 next role<\/p>\n One of the oddities \u2014 and, from a scenery and lodging perspective, one of of the real joys \u2014\u00a0of covering professional golf is that the sport\u2019s most iconic figure reliably speaks once per year, at a relatively chill, limited-field golf tournament in a quiet corner of the Bahamas.<\/p>\n And so the week after Thanksgiving I flew to Nassau<\/a>, where (with all due respect to Hideki Matsuyama<\/a>) the main event of the Hero World Challenge was Tiger Woods\u2019 pre-tournament press conference, his first public give-and-take in months. He showed up two minutes early, stayed for a half-hour and gave us a window into how he envisions his future as it relates to professional golf. He\u2019s still recovering from another back surgery, and he hinted towards another playing comeback \u2014\u00a0but for the first time in Woods\u2019 extensive injury history the assembled media seemed just as interested in his golf-related activities away from the course. Woods was sharp and measured. He connected his past to his future. And he was, for him, unusually forthcoming. The line I keep coming back to is this one:<\/p>\n \u201cI know I\u2019m not really saying a whole lot but I\u2019m trying to say as much as I possibly can because there\u2019s so many moving parts to this and it changes all the time,\u201d Woods said, speaking on the PGA Tour\u2019s future. Re-read the first half of that sentence: that\u2019s a half-apology for not saying more, which is something I doubt Woods did a single time during his competitive prime. But this is a different era for Woods, and for his place within the PGA Tour ecosystem, and for that Tour\u2019s new frontman, Brian Rolapp. Rolapp was in the Bahamas, too, golf\u2019s exciting new outsider pairing with golf\u2019s great insider. To Woods, professional golf is everything. To Rolapp? It\u2019s his next business challenge.<\/p>\n Below is what I wrote from the Bahamas on what could be a complementary collision.<\/p>\n \u2014<\/p>\n THE FINAL QUESTION of Tiger Woods\u2019 Tuesday press conference at the Hero World Challenge yielded an unexpectedly poignant answer.<\/p>\n \u201cYou\u2019re chairing the Future Competitions Committee,\u201d a reporter began. \u201cl\u2019d like to know, personally, what is your motivation to contribute heavily to the strength of the PGA Tour?\u201d<\/p>\n It\u2019s a question central to the present and future of men\u2019s professional golf. Woods has enough money, prestige and time to do just about anything, of course \u2014 but he\u2019s chosen to fill his days with Zoom calls and strategy meetings in an attempt to reinvent a tour on which his own competitive days are numbered. Is Woods careless with his time? Nobody thinks that. But nobody knew how carefully he\u2019d thought about his decision to moonlight as a golf bureaucrat. Not until Woods answered the question.<\/p>\n \u201cWell, the PGA Tour gave me an opportunity to chase after a childhood dream,\u201d he said. \u201cI got a chance to hit my first ball in my first PGA Tour event when I was 16 years old. I know that\u2019s what, 33 years ago, but I\u2019ve been involved with the PGA Tour ever since then.<\/p>\n \u201cA little kid from Cypress, California, growing up on a par-3 course got a chance to play against the best players in the world and make it to World No. 1. I got a chance to be involved in a lot of different things on our Tour. This is a different opportunity to make an impact on the Tour. <\/p>\n \u201cI did it with my golf clubs, I made a few putts here and there and was able to do that. Now I\u2019m able to make an impact in a different way for other generations to come. Not just generations that I played against, but for future generations. Like a 16-year-old looking for a place to play, maybe hoping to play the PGA Tour.\u201d<\/p>\n Woods\u2019 monologue hit on a theme we haven\u2019t heard much recently: That the PGA Tour isn\u2019t a [winces] product in need of [winces again] optimization and [bangs head on desk] profit maximization. It asked us to remember that the PGA Tour is also something else entirely: A place where childhood dreams come true.<\/p>\n As Woods reminded us, his first Tour appearance came 33 years ago. He\u2019s set to turn 50, which means he\u2019s lived two-thirds of his life as a PGA Tour golfer. Anybody who watched Tiger Woods play much golf \u2014 we\u2019re all old. The multiples and fractions all sound unbelievable. Like this one: Woods has lived more than half his life since hosting the Hero World Challenge tournament for the first time; he launched his first limited-field invitational at the ripe age of 24 \u2026 25 years ago. In this year\u2019s field, only Akshay Bhatia \u2014\u00a0who turns 24 next month \u2014\u00a0is younger than Woods was then. Tom Lehman won the 2000 Williams World Challenge. He\u2019s 66 now. Again, we\u2019re all old.<\/p>\n \u201cThe guys that I played with when we first had the World Challenge early in the 2000s, they\u2019re all \u2014 I\u2019m the youngest one,\u201d Woods said. \u201cI\u2019m about ready to turn 50, so those guys are all on the Champions Tour or even retired from the game of golf. They don\u2019t play anymore.\u201d<\/p>\n A glance around the media center served as a reminder that Woods\u2019 longevity isn\u2019t just about the players \u2014\u00a0he\u2019s outlasted just about everybody. Reporters, Tour officials, industry trends. How many newspapers had golf writers covering that first event? By my count there were zero this time around.<\/p>\n Time wins and time changes. But that makes Woods\u2019 new role so interesting. The self-described last member of the old guard is now responsible for leading a coalition taking a bulldozer \u2014\u00a0or at least a pair of sharpened shears \u2014 to the Tour schedule and structure as we\u2019ve come to know it. The ultimate insider seems an unlikely fit to rethink the current structure, but that\u2019s Woods\u2019 directive as chairman of the new Future Competition Committee, whose stated goal is to create an \u201coptimal competitive model\u201d for professional golf.<\/p>\n \u201cI mean, to be honest with you, we started with a blank slate,\u201d Woods said. \u201cWhat would be the best product we can possibly create? What would it look like?\u201d<\/p>\n Enter his partner-in-revolution, new PGA Tour CEO Brian Rolapp. <\/p>\n In generations past, candidates for Tour commissioner were graded on an unofficial rubric of traits like \u201cgolf background\u201d and \u201cgolf handicap.\u201d Rolapp, who was the NFL\u2019s No. 2 before taking the Tour\u2019s top job this summer, is woefully unqualified by those metrics but the envy of the sports world in nearly every other. In this strange time in golf, Rolapp\u2019s golfing inexperience is treated as an advantage rather than a hindrance. His outside perspective means he has a fresh set of eyes. He and Woods are an unlikely pair \u2014\u00a0but as the ultimate insider and ultimate outsider, perhaps they\u2019re perfectly complementary, too.<\/p>\n On Tuesday evening at Albany \u2014 the glitzy, exclusive Bahamas retreat that serves as Hero host \u2014 Woods and Rolapp led an on-site meeting for players on the progress of the Future Competitions Committee. The subtext was clear: the Tour\u2019s two leaders were going to address the future.<\/p>\n Since his hiring, Tour pros have consistently described Rolapp using two words \u2014\u00a0\u201cimpressive\u201d and \u201cdirect.\u201d In no small part because of a general distrust of Tour leadership since the surprise LIV peace accords of June 2023, players make those two attributes sound like a ringing endorsement. The FCC\u2019s plans are not finalized, but an unofficial player poll on Wednesday yielded positive reviews on their process and delivery. Rolapp is transparent. He makes things sound simple. He\u2019s aware of the power of tradition but isn\u2019t personally bound by it. He\u2019s a pragmatist with a laser focus. And every player on site was reportedly in attendance at the meeting, a small but critical show of credibility.<\/p>\n Scottie Scheffler praised Rolapp\u2019s smarts and his work ethic. <\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ve been very pleased with the conversations that I\u2019ve had with him, the things that I\u2019ve been hearing,\u201d the World No. 1 said. \u201cThink they\u2019re looking at things the right way and I\u2019m excited about some of the changes they\u2019re looking to make.\u201d<\/p>\n Keegan Bradley praised his urgency.<\/p>\n \u201cI think Brian\u2019s trying to make changes right away and he\u2019s definitely got a great vision to make the Tour the best as it can be,\u201d the Ryder Cup captain said. \u201cI really love the fact that we\u2019re not waiting, like this isn\u2019t \u2018we\u2019re changing in three years, four years.\u2019 No, we\u2019re doing this next year.\u201d<\/p>\n As for Woods\u2019 assessment?<\/p>\n \u201cBrian\u2019s been fantastic,\u201d he said. \u201cWhat he\u2019s done so far in a short time with his leadership skills and his personality and how he handles situations, his calmness, his thoughtfulness, his directness, transparency, all the things that we were looking for and we needed on the Tour \u2014\u00a0he has delivered in spades.\u201d<\/p>\n Now comes the hard part: Action. <\/p>\n Rolapp has met one-on-one with dozens of Tour pros, in person or over the phone. There\u2019s concern about change on the horizon, but many players are cautiously optimistic. After all, there\u2019s a widespread understanding that the Tour has been operating inefficiently for decades \u2014 the product of another old guard that revered traditions even when they didn\u2019t always make sense. Why is every event owned and operated by somebody different? Why isn\u2019t the Tour in Chicago or Boston or Seattle or New York? Why is the Tour in Memphis in August? When you have Signature Events and Alternate Events on the same schedule, what does it really mean to win a PGA Tour event? Some things could use simplifying. Some traditions could use a shake-up. Time wins and time changes.<\/p>\n This is why Tiger Woods became a bureaucrat, and this is why he cares about Zoom calls: Because he knows that the old guard is replaced eventually \u2014 even when the old guard is Tiger Woods. <\/p>\n But the childhood dream lives on.<\/p>\n “><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The past 12 months had a little of everything \u2014\u00a0a career Grand Slam, Ryder Cup chaos and so…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2496,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[1474],"class_list":["post-14900","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-hero-world-challenge","tag-hero-world-challenge"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14900","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14900"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14900\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2496"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14900"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14900"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14900"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
No. 14 \u2014\u00a0\u2018Happy Gilmore 2\u2019 takes golf world by storm<\/a>
No. 13 \u2014\u00a0Joaquin Niemann\u2019s big 2025 (and crucial 2026)<\/a>
No. 12 \u2014\u00a0J.J. Spaun slays Oakmont<\/a>
No. 11 \u2014\u00a0The Internet Invitational<\/a>
No. 10 \u2014 Jeeno Thitikul\u2019s record-setting year<\/a><\/p>\n