This article is part of our Golf Draft Kit series.
Sleepers
Thompson notched his first PGA Tour victory at the John Deere Classic last season and is looking for more trophies in 2025. Thompson missed just five cuts in 27 starts to go along with 13 top-25 finishes. There's a lot of things to love about his game. The 25-year-old hits it long, is a solid iron player and has dazzling touch around the greens. It's part of the reason why he ranked eighth in SG: Total and sixth in adjusted scoring average on the PGA Tour in 2024. Thompson really has the look of a future top-10 player in the world and it wouldn't surprise me at all to see him holding a spot there at the end of 2025.
— Ryan Andrade
Capan will be a PGA Tour rookie in 2025 after having a stellar year on the Korn Ferry Tour, where he finished third in the points standings on the strength of a win and seven top-10s. The 25-year-old made the cut at Pinehurst this summer, and his above average length off-the-tee and solid short game should translate well to the higher level. Expect him to play a busy schedule and potentially work his way into signature events as the year progresses.
— Ryan Pohle
It was a so-so rookie season for the young Dane in 2024, though he didn't play a ton. In 18 starts, Hojgaard missed only six cuts but had just two top-25s. That included his
Sleepers
Thompson notched his first PGA Tour victory at the John Deere Classic last season and is looking for more trophies in 2025. Thompson missed just five cuts in 27 starts to go along with 13 top-25 finishes. There's a lot of things to love about his game. The 25-year-old hits it long, is a solid iron player and has dazzling touch around the greens. It's part of the reason why he ranked eighth in SG: Total and sixth in adjusted scoring average on the PGA Tour in 2024. Thompson really has the look of a future top-10 player in the world and it wouldn't surprise me at all to see him holding a spot there at the end of 2025.
— Ryan Andrade
Capan will be a PGA Tour rookie in 2025 after having a stellar year on the Korn Ferry Tour, where he finished third in the points standings on the strength of a win and seven top-10s. The 25-year-old made the cut at Pinehurst this summer, and his above average length off-the-tee and solid short game should translate well to the higher level. Expect him to play a busy schedule and potentially work his way into signature events as the year progresses.
— Ryan Pohle
It was a so-so rookie season for the young Dane in 2024, though he didn't play a ton. In 18 starts, Hojgaard missed only six cuts but had just two top-25s. That included his lone top-10, which was an early runner-up at Torrey Pines. He made the cut at all four majors with a best of T16 at the Masters. Hojgaard ranked an excellent T32 in the all-important Strokes Gained: Approach category. All other SG metrics were not great. He missed the playoffs by finishing 82nd in the FedEx Cup point standings. So as you see, there was enough good to believe there is reason for optimism. We have to remember that Hojgaard was just 22 and coming to a whole new world in the United States, leaving his friends, family and comfort zone behind. Now, he not only will have the benefit of a year of experiencing it under his belt, knowing what to expect about life on the PGA Tour, but his twin brother Rasmus will be around, having locked up his PGA Tour card via a good season the DP World Tour. Don't expect greatness, but a playoff berth and perhaps a top-50 to reach the BMW is not too much of a reach for this immensely talented player.
— Len Hochberg
After capturing the Charles Schwab Challenge in May, Riley was on his way to a career-best season, but the rug was pulled out from him after his friend passed away and his sister went through brain surgery to deal with a cancerous tumor. The affect was noticeable on his game as he failed to post a single top-30 the remainder of the season. The end result was his worst earnings number in his three years on the PGA Tour. Look for a renewed Riley to pick up where he left off in May of last year and post some big numbers this season.
— Greg Vara
Season-long fantasy golf is a lot like some of the other sports you might play, in that player availability is one of the best abilities. The more tournament appearances a golfer makes, the more opportunities they have to accrue counting stats and official earnings for your lineup on a regular basis. Well, nobody played more PGA Tour events than Griffin in 2024, totaling 35 starts in which he racked up 25 cuts made, 15 top-25s, five top-10s and a runner-up effort at the RBC Canadian Open. Closing out his campaign with four consecutive finishes of T24 or better from the ZOZO Championship through The RSM Classic, Griffin improved to 57th in the FedExCup Fall standings, therefore obtaining valuable entries via the Aon Next 10 into a couple 2025 Signature Events, namely the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am and The Genesis Invitational. Not only did Griffin's busy schedule allow him to collect the most birdies (479) and eagles (19) on Tour in 2024, but he also ranked third in scoring average (69.05), 34th in SG: Approach and 40th in GIR percentage while his admirable short game carried him to a ranking of 23rd in scrambling as well. He won't wow you off the tee by any means, but Griffin finished on the positive side of Fantasy National's Good Drives Gained metric in 10 of his last 12 outings this past season. He accomplished all of this despite dealing with retinal holes in both eyes, undergoing mid-season procedures to address the issues. He needs to become more comfortable playing near the top of the leaderboard late into weekends, but I expect Griffin to have several chances to notch his maiden PGA Tour victory in 2025, especially at some of the shorter venues.
— Bryce Danielson
Busts
Over half the $6 million that Kirk made in 2024 came from his season-opening victory at The Sentry. There just wasn't much to write home about after that with only four top-25s the rest of the season and a best finish of T9. The stats really reflect that as well ranking 99th in SG: Total and 103rd in adjusted scoring average. Kirk was 170th in SG: Putting, the worst mark in that department in his career. Those are simply not the numbers of a player you would expect to return to the TOUR Championship again in 2025.
— Ryan Andrade
Horschel had a resurgent 2024 that was propelled by winning an alternate event, as he went on to post top-10s at the PGA and Open Championships before besting Rory McIlroy in a playoff at the BMW Championship on the DP Wolrd Tour in the fall. Nevertheless, it's hard to have a lot of confidence that will continue into next year, especially since we've seen this before when he followed up a strong 2022 with a season to forget the year after. At 38-years-old, he's becoming heavily reliant on his short-game to carry the load with the ball striking numbers in a slow decline.
— Ryan Pohle
Pavon came out of nowhere on the PGA Tour after toiling for years in relative anonymity in Europe. He started to show signs late in the 2023 DP World Tour season to earn playing privileges here. In just his third start as a PGA Tour member, the then-31-year-old Frenchman stunningly won the Farmers Insurance Open. And then he finished third in his next start at Pebble Beach. And even before that, in his first start as a member, Pavon had tied for seventh at the Sony. That was quite a start to a PGA Tour career. Wait, we're not done: He tied for 12th at the Masters and for fifth at the U.S. Open. Okay, now were done. Because after that, Pavon didn't have another top-10. He had already done enough to reach the Tour Championship, though he was a non-factor in all three playoff events. Statistically, Pavon did not finish in the top-50 on Tour in any strokes-gained metric. What great player does that? Pavon may still win Rookie of the Year -- it's either him or Nick Dunlap -- but it's easy to see that he could slide back in 2025. Not to the point of being a full-blown bust, just not nearly the player he was in 2024.
— Len Hochberg
I was a fan of "Bobby Mac" long before his breakout season in 2024, but I'm afraid he set the bar a bit too high this past year. MacIntyre is a quality golfer, there's no debating that, but I don't think we can expect him to win two times per season, like he did this past season, going forward. MacIntyre won't fall off the face of the Earth this season, but I highly doubt he can match what he did this past season.
— Greg Vara
Rose managed to crack the $3 million mark in official earnings despite making only 12 cuts throughout the 2024 season, but at 44 years old, the aging Englishman elected to appear for just 19 total tournaments. His campaign was highlighted by a pair of top-6 results at the U.S. Open and the PGA Championship, but he recorded only two other top-25s in 2024 before ultimately dropping outside of the top-60 in the FedExCup Fall standings by season's end. Rose ranked just 157th on Tour in both SG: Tee-to-Green and SG: Approach, guiding him to a 63.30 GIR percentage, his lowest mark in this category since 2019-20. He's simply not good enough and playing too light of a schedule to back up the name brand at this point, so you're basically banking on him to massively over-perform a few weeks out of the year at the majors in order to return value.
— Bryce Danielson
