6 PGA Tour Rookies You Need to Know for 2025
The most competitive level of professional golf, the PGA Tour is composed of the best players from around the world, including Scottie Scheffler (USA), Hideki Matsuyama (Japan), Ludvig Åberg (Sweden), and Sungjae Im (South Korea). In order to participate in PGA Tour events, players need to earn a Tour card. They can earn these through several pathways, including the Korn Ferry Tour (KFT), DP World Tour, and PGA Tour University. They maintain their tour cards by meeting performance benchmarks, including winning tournaments and finishing among the top 125 golfers in the FedEx Cup standings at the end of the season.
Thirty-two players from 11 countries earned PGA Tour cards for the first time in the 2025 season. Here's a look at six standout rookies and the varied paths they took to achieve Tour status.
1. Matt McCarty
One of 23 PGA Tour rookies to earn their cards via the KFT, Arizona native Matt McCarty won four tournaments last year, including three in six starts. This gave him an automatic Three-Victory Promotion, but the winning didn't stop there. McCarty also won the Black Desert Championship in October 2024 in just his third start on the PGA Tour. In doing so, he became one of just six players to win on the PGA Tour in their first three starts and secured a spot in the Masters and PGA Championship in 2025.
McCarty was second on the KFT in driving accuracy, but third-to-last in driving distance in 2022. Working with longtime swing coach Dave Williams, he added power to his game, finishing in the middle of the pack in distance in each of the last two KFT seasons. He narrowly missed earning a Tour card in 2023, finishing just outside the top 30, and finished first on the KFT Points List in 2024.
2. Frankie Capan III
After finishing 51st on the KFT Points List in 2023, Frankie Capan III had a breakthrough year in 2024, scoring a pair of runner-up finishes and winning the Nationwide Children's Hospital Championship. His other notable achievements include shooting a first round 58 at the Veritex Bank Championship last year and winning the 2017 U.S. Amateur Four-Ball Championship with Shuai Ming Wong.
3. Aldrich Potgieter
The youngest rookie on the PGA Tour in 2025, Aldrich Potgieter has been on the radar of hardcore golf fans since winning the British Amateur at just 17 years old. Now 20, Potgieter arrives on the PGA Tour with an impressive resume that also includes victories at the 2022 South African Boys U19 Championship, 2023 Junior Invitational at Sage Valley, and The Bahamas Great Abaco Classic at The Abaco Club on the KFT in 2024.
Potgieter was the youngest player in history to win on the KFT and youngest winner on either the KFT or PGA Tour since Ralph Guldahl won the 1931 Santa Monica Open at 19 years, 2 months, and 3 days. He ranked first in driving distance (336.5) on the KFT last year and finished 29th in the year-end standings.
4. Karl Vilips
Australian-born golfer Karl Vilips was one of seven rookies who graduated from PGA Tour University, a program that identifies and provides advancement opportunities to the best college golfers in the US. Many golf fans know him for his successful YouTube channel, which he has run for more than 10 years. He has had great success both in college and on the KFT. While at Stanford University, he earned conditional KFT status via a 10th-place finish in the PGA Tour University rankings.
Vilips played in just 10 events during his rookie season on the KFT, but won the Utah Championship presented by Zions Bank and Intermountain Health and finished 19th in the year-end standings.
5. Rasmus Højgaard
The twin brother of PGA Tour and 2023 European Ryder Cup team player Nikolai Højgaard, Rasmus Højgaard finished second in the DP World Tour Eligibility Ranking in 2024. The 23-year-old Dane has won five times on the DP World Tour. He won his first event at just 18 years old and fended off Rory McIlroy to win the Amgen Irish Open in 2024. A model of consistency last season, he didn't miss a cut and had seven top-10 finishes.
Rasmus is one of the more experienced rookies on the PGA Tour in 2025. While it's technically his first full season, he has already played in 22 events and made 12 cuts. His best result on the PGA Tour was a sixth-place finish at the Corales Puntacana Championship in 2022.
6. Matteo Manassero
Italian Matteo Manassero has taken the most unique path to the PGA Tour among the 32 rookies this season. Regarded as a teenage prodigy, he was just 16 years old when he finished T13 at the 2009 Open Championship at Turnberry and made the cut at the Masters the following year. He won four times on the DP World Tour, but then started to struggle, eventually losing status and taking a break from golf.
Manassero played on the lower level Alps and Challenge Tours in recent years and last year won for the first time in 11 years on the DP World Tour. Now 31, he's back on the PGA Tour for the first time since playing with Special Temporary Member status in 2014.