[PHOTO: Gary Kellner]
It’s not hard to pick out dates to circle in red as the important golf weeks before each season. There are four majors for the men and five for the women. Where they’re playing those is always intriguing. Other no-brainers: when and where will Tiger Woods play? What are the international team competitions for the year and where are the amateur national championships being contested? Are there key circumstances off the course that should be noted? When will Rory McIlroy win another major?
No crystal ball helps with that last one, but for the others, we can truly say that 2025 shapes up to be a fantastic golf season on so many levels. And the anticipation only figures to build with what could be an all-time memorable Ryder Cup at Bethpage Black in September.
Here, we offer the dates that should be on every golf fan’s radar.
PGA Tour–PIF deal (????)
It has to happen this year, right? How much do we have to beg? The pro game’s civil war has dragged into a fourth calendar year, and though we sometimes get encouraging updates that the PGA Tour and Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (operators of the rival LIV Golf League) are getting closer to joining forces, nothing has been finalised. The legal and practical circumstances are complicated, to be sure, but we’re know this: golf fans are sick of hearing about the troubles and just want to see all of the game’s best players on the same course in more than just the majors. This has to be the year that gets done.
TGL debut (January 8) 
A couple of years in the making (and one unfortunate dome collapse later), the Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy-led indoor simulator golf league, TGL, takes its bow at the SoFi Center in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida, with a match-up between New York Golf Club and The Bay Golf Club. Six teams will play five regular-season head-to-head matches on Monday and Tuesday nights (US time) leading to the playoffs and the two-team, two-night Finals Series on March 24-25. The rules and flow of play are too complicated to explain here (see our primer for that), but the huge screen and hydraulics-supported putting green look very cool. The big question is: will simulator golf with big-name pros have lengthy appeal or suffer fleeting interest from the younger core audience it covets?
LPGA Tournament of Champions (Jan. 30–Feb. 2)
The LPGA Tour opens its milestone 75th season with the Hilton Grand Vacations Tournament of Champions at Lake Nona in Orlando. Lydia Ko, the newest LPGA Hall of Famer and recently named Dame by the New Zealand Government, is the defending champion, with all eyes on her and Nelly Korda, the latter coming off her historic seven-win campaign. The tour season will feature 33 official events and a record $US131 million in total prizemoney. Yet to be known is if the LPGA will have a new commissioner for the opener after Mollie Marcoux Samaan resigned in early December, a year-and-a-half short of fulfilling her contract.
WM Phoenix Open (February 6-9)
Can the Phoenix Open return to some form of sanity and civility in 2025? We’ll find out. The annual party at TPC Scottsdale went full “Animal House” last February when tournament organisers, the Thunderbirds, had to close the gates and stop selling food and alcohol on a wet and muddy Saturday. Fans scuffled in the stands, one guy jumped into a bunker to make sand angels, and there were plenty of videos on social media of plastered spectators staggering around or passed out; more seriously, one fan fell out of a grandstand. In October, the Thunderbirds announced changes for 2025: a second entrance; only digital tickets; no third-party ticket vendors; new hospitality areas to keep fans from crowding holes; wider walking paths. No word on limiting alcohol sales, so we’ll see if any of this truly works.
LIV Golf League opener (February 6-8)
LIV Golf heads into its fourth season with 10 events on its current schedule. The tour opens in Saudi Arabia, plays five times overseas and has its first US stop in Dallas in late June. There are three dates in America so far, including the Individual Championship that will be held in a first visit to Indianapolis at The Club at Chatham Hills. Jon Rahm returns as the individual titlist and the defending team winners are the Cam Smith-led, all-Australian Ripper GC.
Genesis Invitational (February 13-16)
Once again, the signature event at Riviera Country Club seems like the most likely spot for Tiger’s season debut. That was the case last year, but to everyone’s deep disappointment, Woods, the tournament host, had to be carted off the course on Friday with flu-like symptoms. It portended a tough year, with Woods making only four other starts and one cut – in the Masters.
LIV Golf Adelaide (February 14-16)
The third edition of LIV’s event in the South Australian capital moves from April to February and has us wondering how the carnival atmosphere might unfold if Adelaide serves up a few days of its infamous 40-plus-degree summer heat. Whatever the weather does, it’s sure to be a hit once again as LIV Golf’s ties with Australia continue to grow stronger.
Masters (April 10-13)
Golf fans will tune in early in the week to the men’s first major at Augusta National with particular focus on the golf course. After America’s south suffered devastating damage in October due to the 130mph winds and torrential rain of Hurricane Helene, aerial photos showed apparent damage – mostly downed trees – to America’s most beloved layout. ANGC offered little comment, but with unlimited funds and probably the world’s best agronomy crew, we might not see one bit of difference. That would be a heartening win for everybody before Scottie Scheffler tees it up to defend his green jacket.
Chevron Championship (April 24-27)
The LPGA’s first major of the season, being played for the third year at The Club at Carlton Woods outside Houston, boasts Nelly Korda as its defending champion. The 2024 Chevron marked a fifth straight win for Korda and was her first major triumph since the 2021 KPMG Women’s PGA. Carlton Woods is gathering a good pedigree, with two-time major winner Lilia Vu being the first to make the celebratory jump into Carlton’s lake in 2023.
PGA Championship (May 15-18)
This year’s PGA has a tough act to follow after Valhalla 2024 produced some fascinating fodder, including the arrest of Scottie Scheffler and the major breakthrough of Xander Schauffele, who outduelled Bryson DeChambeau down the stretch. The venue is Quail Hollow in Charlotte, well-known to fans because it regularly hosts the Wells Fargo Championship. This is the second PGA at the course in eight years, with Justin Thomas winning his first major here in 2017. Early betting thought: Rory McIlroy and Max Homa have each won two of the past five Wells Fargos, with Wyndham Clark breaking them up.
US Women’s Open (May 29–June 1)
In the first of three new trips to major sites in 2025 for the women, the US Women’s Open is set for Erin Hills, the Wisconsin course that hosted the 2017 US Open won by Brooks Koepka. Japan’s Yuka Saso captured the 2024 US Women’s Open at Lancaster Country Club in Pennsylvania.
US Open (June 12-15)
We’ll maintain here that Oakmont Country Club outside Pittsburgh is in the top three of all US Open venues, proved by this being its 10th hosting of America’s national championship. Henry Fownes’ only course design, opened in 1903, is an extraordinary test, highlighted by the greens that rival Augusta National in their slope and speed. The last Oakmont US Open in 2016 was a doozy, with Dustin Johnson claiming his first major only after enduring a Sunday rules kerfuffle in which he was informed during the round that he might be assessed a penalty for causing his ball to move on a green, but wouldn’t know for sure until the round ended. Johnson shrugged it off to win by three, the USGA later called its actions a “big bogey” and the “DJ” rule was changed the next year. Expect a big-name winner. Oakmont’s Open history is strong, thanks to champions such as Tommy Armour, Ben Hogan, Jack Nicklaus, Johnny Miller, Ernie Els and Angel Cabrera.
KPMG Women’s PGA Championship (June 19-22)
With South Korea’s Amy Yang as the defending champion, the KPMG Women’s PGA has the honour of being the first major championship played at the PGA of America’s new home in Frisco, Texas. The Fields Ranch East course designed by Gil Hanse is also set to host the PGA Championship in 2027.
Open Championship (July 17-20)
Golf’s oldest major returns in its 153rd edition to Northern Ireland’s Royal Portrush. There were gallons of Guinness tipped in 2019 when Irishman Shane Lowry dominated the field in winning his first major by six shots. The reigning Open champion is Xander Schauffele, who backed up his PGA win with a second major triumph at Royal Troon. Tony Finau was the top American finisher in ’19, placing two shots behind runner-up Tommy Fleetwood. (Schauffele tied for 41st and Rory McIlroy missed the cut.)
AIG Women’s Open (July 31–August 3)
Fans are in for a treat as the women compete for the first time at Royal Porthcawl, a renowned links course in Wales that hasn’t been able to get into the men’s Open Championship rota because of a lack of infrastructure. Porthcawl has hosted numerous big events, including the Amateur Championship and Senior Open. Notable is that the 1995 US Walker Cup team led by Tiger Woods lost to a Great Britain & Ireland squad that included Padraig Harrington.
US Women’s Amateur (August 4-10) and US Amateur (August 11-17)
The USGA takes its two most prestigious amateur championships to a pair of iconic venues in America’s west – the men at The Olympic Club and women at Bandon Dunes. The renovated Olympic Lake course will host its 11th USGA championship, with the last US Amateur there won by Colt Knost in 2007. The women will compete in the first “Am” on the original Bandon Dunes course that hosted the US Amateur in 2020. Bandon has seven more USGA events on its slate through 2045.
Walker Cup (September 6-7)
How about this for a Walker Cup double? The 2023 edition, won 14½-11½ by the Americans, was played on the Old Course at St Andrews. This year, the US hosts at one of America’s most revered and mysterious courses, the Cypress Point Club on the Monterey Peninsula. Revered, as in Cypress ranks third behind only Pine Valley and Augusta National in Golf Digest’s 100 Greatest Courses ranking; mysterious, because other than incredible photos, few fans have a feel for how the entire layout flows and plays. The Alistair Mackenzie masterpiece hasn’t been available to viewers or spectators since it last hosted rounds in the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am in 1990. For brush-up reading in the build-up, there is Mark Frost’s excellent book, “The Match” that details the 1956 match pitting Ben Hogan and Byron Nelson against Ken Venturi and Harvie Ward at Cypress Point. This Walker Cup is going to be a real treat.
Ryder Cup (September 26-28)
Is the world ready for golf’s biggest team spectacle to be played at Bethpage Black among the boisterous New York masses? The prospects are both exciting and unnerving, with a near-guarantee this will be the wildest crowd in Ryder Cup history. Morons who might ruin it could be stuck on the couch by the controversially high ticket prices, but let’s just say there will probably be more cops inside the ropes than any golf tournament ever. Into the cauldron goes American rookie captain Keegan Bradley, facing repeat European leader Luke Donald as the US tries to make it six straight wins by home teams.
