While the PGA Tour makes its way from the West Coast to Florida with a stop for some at the Mexico Open this week, it’s a good moment to look at what has happened so far and what may lie ahead as both the Players Championship and the Masters creep ever closer.
Theme One
European Ryder Cup captain Luke Donald must be feeling good about the strength of his squad with four likely members of his team having already won PGA Tour events this year.
Rory McIlroy and Ludvig Åberg are virtual locks to be at Bethpage Black in September, Thomas Detry will probably qualify for his first Ryder Cup and Sepp Straka, who won the American Express, will be a tough one to leave off the 12-man roster.
LIV Golf competitors Jon Rahm and Tyrrell Hatton are set up to be eligible, Tommy Fleetwood and Justin Rose keep rolling along and Adrian Meronk won the LIV opener. Only a disastrous season would keep Shane Lowry off the team and Rasmus Højgaard may be ready for his close up.
The Americans are still the betting favorites perhaps as much because of where the matches will be played as anything. Only three times in the last 14 Ryder Cups has the visiting team won – and the Europeans did it each of those times – but home course advantage is very real in the Ryder Cup.
Bethpage figures to be a bubbling cauldron of noise and emotion and while that figures to favor the Americans, it could get testy if the U.S. team were to struggle given the discontent over the new pay-to-play model instituted this year. New York crowds aren’t afraid to bark at their own.
Don’t feel badly for American captain Keegan Bradley. He starts with Scottie Scheffler, Xander Schauffele (expected to return from a rib injury at the Arnold Palmer Invitational in early March) and Bryson DeChambeau, the definition of starting from a position of strength.
Theme Two
Expectations are funny.
In McIlroy’s case, he’s tasked with trying to live up to a standard that is almost impossible to achieve because there is a sense that he should win or contend every time he plays. His victory at the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am only fueled the feeling that this could be a season for him like Scheffler’s was last year.
McIlroy had a miserable putting weekend in the Genesis Invitational at Torrey Pines, ranking 52nd and 54th in strokes gained putting in the third and fourth rounds in a 54-player field. He tends to have some weeks like that, but he putted brilliantly at Pebble Beach.
With the PGA Championship at Quail Hollow Club, where he has won four times, and the Open Championship at Royal Portrush near where he grew up in Northern Ireland, this feels like McIlroy’s major championship moment.
That’s the way expectations work.
As for Scheffler, duplicating his 2024 results (seven official tour victories plus two unofficial wins) is the measure by which he will be evaluated. It may be an unfair expectation but it’s there nonetheless.
After having the start of his ’25 season delayed by a puncture wound to his right hand, Scheffler has played three times and has two top-10 finishes but he hasn’t looked Scottie sharp to this point.
His Sunday 66 in the Genesis Invitational sparkled but it was his 76 on Saturday that raised eyebrows. Scheffler has struggled with his ball-striking consistency so far, his reliable fade suddenly less reliable.
The encouraging part for Scheffler, though, is despite not being at his best – “I feel pretty bad about where I’m at,” Scheffler said Sunday – he is still close and when he shows up at Bay Hill, no one will forget that is where he began a run of four wins in five starts last year.
Theme Three
For all the brilliant things Ludvig Åberg does on the golf course, the most impressive one may be the hardest one:
He makes the game look easy.
There is an elegant simplicity to how Åberg approaches and plays the game and it’s why he could ultimately be the player who chases down Scheffler and challenges his place atop the world ranking.
Åberg is that good.
The most surprising part of his Genesis Invitational victory Sunday was that it’s only his second PGA Tour win, coming nearly 15 months after his victory at the 2023 RSM Classic.
“It felt like a lifetime,” Åberg said when asked about the time between his first and second tour victories.
Åberg might have won at Torrey Pines three weeks earlier when he was leading the Farmers Insurance Open after 36 holes only to fall so sick he ultimately lost eight pounds. Feeling better last week, Åberg got it done at one of his favorite courses on tour.
“I was pretty bummed I didn’t get to win a tournament last year, but it’s really nice to be able to do it again. It’s almost addicting to walk down those last couple holes and just want to do it again,” Åberg said.
Another thing to like about Åberg: His pace of play.
He sees a shot, picks a club and goes.
Just one more reason to like him.
Theme Four
Since we’re on the subject of winning and how difficult it is, it brings to mind Patrick Rodgers, who took a one-stroke lead into the final round Sunday and finished tied for third, three behind Åberg.
Rodgers has made 287 tour starts without a victory after a spectacular amateur career. Rodgers has finished second four times and third four times but he’s never been the guy holding the trophy – and he feels like everybody knows it.
“It’s clearly something I’ve battled in my career,” Rodgers said last Saturday evening before sleeping on the lead. “It’s the thing that whenever my name is mentioned, that’s the first thing that everybody says professionally so it’s something that I have to deal with. I think I’ve struggled with it for a long time, but I feel like I’m viewing my career from a different vantage point now.”
What has changed?
“Instead of playing with a lot of expectation, I need to play to achieve. That’s what I’ve always set out to do, and it kind of felt like early in my career with the amateur résumé that I had, I felt like there was a lot expected of myself internally and it was something where when immediate success, immediate wins didn’t come straight away, it was kind of fighting who I saw myself to be, to be honest with you.
“So instead of playing with a monkey on your back that gets bigger and bigger over time when it doesn’t happen, I’m trying to play from a perspective that feels fresh and new and exciting and full of opportunity because that’s what this game is.”
Rodgers will try again this week in Mexico.