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 score to take home the title.
With the golf season off and running, GOLF Subpar hosts Colt Knost and Drew Stoltz felt it was the appropriate time to look ahead to the upcoming major season and predict who will claim golf’s biggest prizes in 2025.
As is always the case, the major championship conversation revolved around Rory McIlroy and his quest to snap his 10-year major drought.
While neither Knost nor Stoltz picked McIlroy to win the 2025 Masters, Knost does see McIlroy picking off not one but two majors in 2025, starting with the PGA Championship at Quail Hollow.
“There’s a man named Rory McIlroy that is going to be in the field and he kind of likes Quail Hollow a little bit,” Knost said. “He’s only won there four times. In 13 events, he has 10 top-10s. He makes this golf course look like a pitch-and-putt with some of the lines he takes.
“I know the whole world is going to pick Rory to end his major drought — it has been since 2014 — but I think Rory gets it done at the PGA here.”
Knost sees McIlroy lifting the Wanamaker Trophy and then punctuating his return to major championship glory with a win at the 2025 Open Championship at Royal Portrush. As you might remember, McIlroy holds the course record at Royal Portrush (61) and famously 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 for McIlroy with a major championship in his home country.
“I just think this is going to be a massive year for this guy,” Knost said. “Last time The Open was here, he started off with a little eight on the first hole. He was all the talk going in. He’s from Northern Ireland. He’s the hometown favorite. Had the weight of the country on his back and proceeded to hit two balls out of bounds to start the tournament.
“I have a feeling he’s out for revenge when it comes back to Royal Portrush. I have Rory McIlroy picking up 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 case in 2025.
He does, however, see two other European stars winning major titles in 2025, including a critic-silencing win for Jon Rahm at The Open.
“He didn’t have the best major performance last year, right?” Stoltz said. “Went to LIV. People are kind of sleeping on him. I think his motivation to win major championships is as high as ever. He hears the narrative. He knows about it. I think he wants to prove everybody wrong.
“The way he drives the golf ball. The windows he can hit. He can hit it low, high, short game, all that. I like him at a bunch of major championships but I feel like an Open is a place he’s going to get it done. Why not this year?”
For more major predictions, check out the full Subpar episode below.
