The PGA Tour announced Aldrich Potgieter as the winner of the 2025 Arnold Palmer Award on Monday, the honor given to the tour’s rookie of the year.
Usually a story like this would lead to the big award also announced on Monday, the PGA Tour Player of the Year (known as the Jack Nicklaus Award), but it was hardly surprising.
Scottie Scheffler won it again, as he did in 2024 and 2023 and 2022. While you might think there was a slim chance Rory McIlroy would steal this one, it was probably never that close (voting percentages among tour members were not released). Despite winning three times less than Scheffler, McIlroy had victories at the Players and the Masters, the latter ending his career Grand Slam. McIlroy’s win at Augusta was MOST unforgettable win of the yearbut this alone is not enough to eclipse Scheffler’s work.
Scheffler won six times in 2025, including two more majors, the The PGA Championship AND Open Championship. He is now just one US Open win away from completing a career Grand Slam.
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His resume made him the obvious choice for his fourth consecutive Jack Nicklaus Award. And at this point, with him still holding a stranglehold as the best golfer in the world, there’s really only one question worth asking: Will he EVER be replaced?
Now with four straight, Scheffler has one more than McIlroy’s three, and only Tiger Woods has won the PGA Tour Player of the Year more times in a row since it was created in 1990. Woods won five straight from 1999 to 2003 (and later three more back-to-back from 2005 to 2007).
Scheffler’s last two years have left little debate when it comes to the rightful recipient of the award.
He won seven times in 2024 and won 91 percent of the vote. He was also a runaway winner in 2022 (89 percent), and in only one year (2023) was he actually close, when his 38 percent won Wyndham Clark, Viktor Hovland, Jon Rahm and McIlroy.
If Scheffler wins POY next year, he will tie Woods for the most consecutive honors (five). At that point, the question turns to whether he can catch Woods, who won the award 11 times in his career.
It’s a good bet Scheffler will earn a handful more, though it’s still too early to say he has a legitimate shot at scaring Woods’ 11 total.
That said, with 13 wins over the past two years, don’t expect him to go away anytime soon. His peers certainly don’t. Take Scheffler’s last win, at the Procore Championship in September. Scheffler only played what is usually a sleepy offseason event as a Ryder Cup tune-up for members of Team USA. Lanto Griffin took third, an important finish to improve his fall standing at the FedEx Cup as he desperately tries to earn full PGA Tour status for 2026. In an emotional interview afterward, Griffin talked about winning Q-School last year, extending his tour life and how at Procore it all came together. For him, every point counted.
