Why McIlroy Deserves Player Of The Year Honors Over Scheffler

Voting for the PGA Tour’s Player of the Year award is now open.

Did any of you play in at least 15 official FedExCup events during the 2025 season? If so, get out your phone and vote before Dec. 12 when the poll closes.

Your choices are Scottie Scheffler, Rory McIlroy, Tommy Fleetwood and Ben Griffin—although only Scheffler and McIlroy stand a realistic chance of winning.

Before you vote, would you mind listening to my pitch for McIlroy?

Ah, yes. MGS readers might assume that I would prefer world No. 1 Scottie Scheffler to win the award for the fourth consecutive season (jeez, Scottie, take it easy on everyone).

McIlroy isn’t among my favorite players given recent antics and Scheffler did win six times this year.

Usually when you win two majors like Scheffler did, the vote is a forgone conclusion.

Maybe it still is—but I’m actually vouching for McIlroy this time around.

Let’s do a little resume comparison

By the raw numbers, I will admit Scheffler was better than McIlroy in most categories this season.

Keep in mind this is only based on Tour competition so the Ryder Cup doesn’t technically count in this particular vote (although there are other POTY awards given out that do consider it).

If it did count, McIlroy’s 3-1-1 record would easily trump Scheffler’s 1-4-0 mark (although Scheffler did beat McIlroy in singles, which cuts into that deficit slightly).

	Rory McIlroy	Scottie Scheffler
Number of Tour wins	3	6
Number of majors	1	2
Scoring average	69.1	68.1
Data Golf ranking	No. 3 (+1.95)	No. 1 (+3.20)
Players Championship	Win	T20
Masters	Win	4th
PGA Championship	T47	Win
U.S. Open	T19	T7
Open Championship	T7	Win

For what it’s worth, Scheffler was T4 in the final FedEx Cup standings while McIlroy was T23.

Scheffler didn’t capture any wins until May—his year got off to a slow start because of a freak injury involving ravioli—but then he started cooking.

His six wins were the CJ Cup Byron Nelson, PGA Championship, Memorial Tournament, The Open Championship, BMW Championship and Procore Championship.

McIlroy’s three wins were the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am, the Players Championship and the Masters.

As a point of pure consistency, Scheffler clearly had the better of play.

So why am I arguing that McIlroy should win Player of the Year?

This is a very straightforward argument. It won’t be enough for some people.

McIlroy won the Masters, capturing his white whale and becoming just the sixth player in history to win the career Grand Slam.

That win is clearly the story of the year in golf. It’s one of the stories of the year in sports.

To me, it’s a trump card over anything else.

If that was McIlroy’s only win on the season, then maybe it wouldn’t have the power to overcome Scheffler’s resume.

But McIlroy’s three victories are nearly equivalent to Scheffler’s six wins, even without considering the historic implications of his Masters win.

He won a signature event at Pebble Beach and then the Players Championship, which has arguably the best field in golf, prior to getting the green jacket.

Two of Scheffler’s six wins came at lower-tier events with mediocre fields. McIlroy didn’t play in either of them.

So it ultimately feels more like two majors and two signature event wins (Scheffler) versus one major and two signature event wins (McIlroy).

I know the Ryder Cup doesn’t count for this vote but consider that McIlroy accomplished the only two meaningful goals he really had left as a player: to win the Masters and win an away Ryder Cup.

He rose to the occasion for both of those. Ultimately, I think the Masters alone is enough.

This award is not exactly the Cy Young in baseball. Nobody really cares that much about who wins.

It’s still a fun debate to have.

I am going against the grain here but I’m on Team McIlroy for PGA Tour Player of the Year.

Top Photo Caption: Rory McIlroy and Scottie Scheffler are favorites for Player of the Year honors. (GETTY IMAGES/Warren Little)