The band Fleetwood Mac’s best year was probably 1977. They released their incredible Rumours album that year, which would go on to sell 40 million copies, going 21 times platinum in the US. It featured four hit singles, including the iconic Go Your Own Way and would go on to win a Grammy for Album of the Year.
But that all pales into insignificance next to the 2025 enjoyed by the Fleetwood Mac of the golfing world, Tommy Fleetwood and Rory McIlroy. They will no doubt add to their achievements over the final weeks of 2025, but already they have had a year that will take some topping.
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Another Ryder Cup in the Bag
Golf is largely an individual sport but that only serves to make the occasions when players compete in teams all the more special. The Ryder Cup is the pinnacle of the game for many fans and the pairing of Rory and Fleetwood is one of the competition’s greatest.
They have won the competition together in 2018, 2023 and 2025 and have a superb record playing together, winning four points from four in foursomes at the last two events. They were formidable at Bethpage in 2025 and their two points together and combined 7.5 points from 10 available were instrumental in Europe’s defence of their crown.
A Grand Year for Rory
At the start of the year, Rory was very open about his career goals and how he intended to prioritise them. He wanted to finally land the Masters and complete the career Grand Slam, win another away Ryder Cup, and land an Olympic medal. He’ll have to wait until 2028 for the medal but the first two are in the bag at the first time of asking.
In 2025, he headed to Augusta with high hopes, having already landed the Pebble Beach Pro-Am and The Players Championship. He won the latter via a play-off and he then finally earned a green jacket by defeating friend Justin Rose in another play-off at the Masters. He has now won all four of the game’s biggest prizes and has joined an uber-elite group to have landed the career Grand Slam.
His year was not done yet, though. To set himself up for the Ryder Cup perfectly, he claimed yet another massive win, again via a play-off. His victory at the Irish Open meant so much to him and his adoring local fans. It was all the more dramatic too given he holed a 27-foot putt for eagle on the last hole to force the play-off. What a year for Rory!
Career-Defining 2025 for Popular Fleetwood
As incredible as Rory’s 2025 was, it may not have been the best of his career. In 2014, he won two majors, while he spent the majority of 2015 as world number one. However, there is no doubt that 2025 is the finest year that Tommy Fleetwood has ever had in golf. If he does go on to have a better year, it will take some doing and the foundations of future success were undoubtedly laid here.
Like Rory, he had a fabulous Ryder Cup and with four points, he was the leading scorer for either side. That wasn’t surprising because he came into the event as probably the in-form player in world golf. He had had a good 2025 but several times came close to finally winning on the PGA Tour, only to come up just short.
He regularly set or extended various unwanted records for the most money earned without a win on the game’s top tour, as well as the most tournaments played. He went so close at the Travelers and the St Jude but finally got over the line in one of the biggest, and certainly richest, tournaments of the lot. At the 164th attempt, he landed his first PGA Tour win, and a cheque for $10m, at the Tour Championship to win the FedEx Cup.
His win also meant he became the first player ever to finish in the top six at all three events in the postseason series. Amazingly, he played the three events, 12 rounds of golf, in 43 under par!
As if a maiden win, a stonking pay cheque and a Ryder Cup win were not enough, Fleetwood then achieved something special from a personal point of view. At the DP World India Championship, he won yet again, his eighth win on the European Tour. However, this one perhaps meant more than all the rest because his son Frankie, eight years old, got to run onto the 18th green to celebrate with him.
The Southport ace revealed that his son had never previously been able to join him in his moment of glory and it was special for them both. He is now up to a career high number five in the world rankings and if he can sustain this sort of form, it might just be Fleetwood, rather than Mac, who challenges Scottie Scheffler for the world number one crown in 2026.