Four Storylines to Watch out for next year

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With the golf season finally winding down to a close, attention is already starting to turn towards 2025. Set to be a special season with plenty to play for, here are four storylines to keep an eye on next year.

Will Scottie Scheffler continue to dominate?

Despite the fractured nature of the men’s professional game, Scottie Scheffler continues to reign supreme and whether you are a fan of the PGA Tour, DP World Tour or LIV, one view that unites fans across the world is that Scheffler is without doubt the best player on the planet.

The world number one now for well over three seasons, Scheffler’s 2024 season is worthy of Hall of Fame consideration and there is a high chance that nobody will come close to matching his exploits for an exceptionally long period of time.

With eight titles secured including the Masters, Players Championship, RBC Heritage, Travelers Championship and Olympic Gold, Scheffler has beaten all before him and has ruled over a massive variety of courses. However, one thing that Scheffler is still to do is win a major away from the luxurious settings of Augusta and you can be assured that as 2025 rolls around, he will be desperate to change that narrative.

He has already committed to playing in five of the first seven tournaments and you can believe that he is doing that to ensure that by the time the majors roll around in the spring he will be ready to compete and win. There are very few criticisms that can be thrown his way but his lack of majors outside of Augusta is one and you can bet your bottom dollar that Scheffler will be hellbent in changing that perception next season.

Will Scottie Scheffler continue to dominate


Will Rory McIlroy finally win another major?

It is now over ten years since Rory McIlroy last tasted major success and for a man of his considerable talents that gap is simply too big. It's not as if in that time McIlroy hasn’t been one of the best players in the world, he has won numerous European Order of Merit titles, has been a regular winner in both Europe and America and has become a Ryder Cup legend but it is in the majors where players are judged and in that sense, the Northern Irishman has fallen well short.

It’s easy to forget that McIlroy is just one major short of completing the career Grand Slam and needs just a win at the Masters to complete his major set and join the list of a select few elite players who have been able to bag all four of the game’s biggest prizes.

Despite being 35 and the game awash with young talented players, it is still McIlroy who is one of the game’s most prestigious talents, but it isn’t his ball striking that has been called into question, it is his mindset.

This question would have been moot had McIlroy been able to hold on for success at the 2024 U.S Open. Leading by two with just six holes left, McIlroy missed an inexplicably short putt to give eventual victor Bryson DeChambeau hope and a costly bogey on the final hole opened the door and DeChambeau made sure he barged his way through it.

How long that defeat lingers we won’t know until he finds himself in that position again. Most of the golfing world will be rooting for McIlroy to get back into the major’s winner’s circle and there will be no more popular winner if he can go onto win one in 2025.

Will the home side win the Ryder Cup again?

Golfing fans all over the world will be counting down the months until the Ryder Cup returns. Held every two years, 2024 was a year where the tournament was in a off year, but it will return with a vengeance in 2025.

Set to be held at one of the most difficult golf courses in the world, Bethpage Black, it is widely expected that the American team in front of a boisterous New York crowd will start the tournament as the heavy favourites.

Not since Europe produced one of the best comebacks in the tournament’s history back in 2012 has a side been able to win the tournament away from home and although the Europeans will put up a fight, winning in New York over a course as difficult as Bethpage is as hard as it gets. 

For the good of the competition an away side will need to put up a real fight as in the last two tournaments, both the Europeans at Whistling Straits and the American’s in Rome have been on the receiving end of a beat down.

Never before has home form been as strong, for the competition to keep growing, an away victory would be welcome.

Will the home side win the Ryder Cup again


What will happen to the LIV Tour?

The LIV Tour is about to embark on its third full season, no longer viewed as the noisy upstart, LIV is now firmly a part of the golfing framework and everyone associated with the breakaway tour will hope that this will be the year where the Tour finally breaks through to the golfing mainstream.

One thing that has held LIV back is that it currently doesn’t have a major TV deal and very few can watch. It’s product is mostly served on YouTube and whilst that has pulled in plenty of viewers it isn’t a traditional channel where golf’s most ardent viewers can be found.

What can’t be denied is how the events have been consumed and it is fair to say that LIV is moving the needle for those fans who turn up and watch. The events held in Australia and the UK were two of the most well attended and if that recipe can be repeated throughout the calendar plenty more people will sit up and take notice of how LIV is trying to change the game.

LIV lives by a promise of ‘Golf but louder’, and it's fair to say that when the tournaments are well attended it delivers on that promise. For the rest of the public to feel that way, there is plenty of work still needed, there will be huge hopes that 2025 will be the year where everything finally changes.