A new golf season arrived last week when most of the PGA Tour’s best arrived at the Kapalua Plantation Course, where Hideki Matsuyama posted a historic 35-under par to take home the title.
With the golf season out and running, GOLF Subpar hthere’s Colt Knost and Drew Stoltz felt it was the right time to look ahead to the upcoming major season and predict who will take home golf’s biggest prizes in 2025.
As always, the main talk of the championship revolved around Rory McIlroy and his quest to break his 10-year drought.
While neither Knost nor Stoltz picked McIlroy to win the 2025 Masters, Knost sees McIlroy picking not one, but two majors in 2025, starting with the PGA Championship at Quail Hollow.
“There’s a man named Rory McIlroy who’s going to be on the course and he likes Quail Hollow a little bit,” Knost said. “He’s only won four times there. In 13 events, he has 10 top-10s. He makes this golf course look like a putt with some of the lines he takes.
“I know the whole world is going to be picking Rory to end his big drought – it’s been since 2014 – but I think Rory does well in the PGA here.”
Knost sees McIlroy lift the Wanamaker trophy and then mark his return to major championship glory with a win at the 2025 Open Championship at Royal Portrush. As you may recall, McIlroy holds the course record at Royal Portrush (61) and brilliantly made a quadruple bogey on the opening hole of the 2019 Open there en route to missing the cut.
Knost believes things will be different this time around for McIlroy with a major championship at home.
“I think this is going to be a massive year for this guy,” Knost said. “The last time The Open was here, he started with a low eight on the first hole. He was all talk. He is from Northern Ireland. He is a hometown favorite. Had the weight of the country on his back and went on to hit two balls out of bounds to start the innings.
“I have a feeling he’s out for revenge when it comes to Royal Portrush. I have Rory McIlroy getting his second major of the year.”
While Knost believes McIlroy will snap his major drought in a big way, Stolz doesn’t see the four-time major winner adding to his trophy haul in 2025.
However, it sees two more European stars win major titles in 2025, including a critical win for Jon Rahm at The Open.
“He didn’t have the best major performance last year, did he?” Stoltz said. “I went to LIV. People are sleeping on it. I think his motivation to win major championships is as high as ever. He listens to the confession. He knows about it. I think he wants to prove everyone wrong.
“The way he drives the golf ball. He can hit the windows. He can hit that game low, high, short, all of that. I like him in a number of majors, but I feel like the Open is a place where he’ll get it. Why not this year?”
