Out of the Rough: Hero World Challenge (2025)

With the 2025 season officially behind us, the PGA Tour has a few remaining tournaments before the kickoff of the 2026 season.

With that, comes the Hero World Challenge. 

The Hero World Challenge is a limited invitation only event that yields a high-class field consisting of just 20 players.

This event was first staged at Greyhawk Golf Club in 1999. From there, it moved to the Sherwood Country Club in California in 2000 where it was staged for 14 years.

From there, the event moved to the Isleworth Golf and Country Club in 2014.

Now, Albany in the Bahamas has played host to this event since 2015. It has been held there ever since.

This event is hosted by Tiger Woods who last teed it up in 2023 at this event but will remain idle this go-around.

This week will yield a $5,000,000 purse with the winner claiming $1,000,000.\

The Field

As previously mentioned, this week’s event is a limited field invitational that annually sees 20 of the world’s best battling it out in the Bahamas.

World No. 1 Scottie Scheffler headlines this week’s field, coming in as the back-to-back defending champion.

Scheffler won by a staggering six strokes over second place Tom Kim a season ago and three strokes over Sepp Straka in 2023. 

Defending U.S. Open Champion and World No. 7 J.J. Spaun is making his tournament debut this week. 

Hideki Matuyama (2016) is the only other former winner of this event (at Albany,) outside of Scheffler, to be teeing it up this week.

The rest of the field consists of Robert MacIntyre, Harris English, Keegan Bradley, Justin Rose, Straka, Cameron Young, Sam Burns, Corey Conners, Chris Gotterup, Wyndham Clark, Brian Harman, Andrew Novak, Alex Noren, Aaron Rai, Akshay Bhatia, Billy Horschel and Jordan Spieth.

The Course

Albany in New Providence, Bahamas will be this week’s host for the tenth consecutive year - excluding the 2020 edition lost to the pandemic.

It plays as a Par 72 at 7,414 yards.

It is an Ernie Els design that was opened in 2010. It was used for the first time for a professional tournament in 2015 when it first hosted this very event.

Albany offers a unique mix of five par-fives, five par-threes and eight par-fours.

Three of the par-fives measure over 590 yards and four of the par-fours play over 470 yards. In other words, there’s plenty of length on this course that will put an added emphasis on long-iron play.

This course is best described as an exposed flat links-style course with dunes up to 30-feet tall. 

The greens this week are fairly small in terms of PGA Tour average and consist of Bermuda grass.

Albany is also heavily bunkered with a multitude of natural waste areas lining the fairways. Although this course offers plenty of length, there is a need for accuracy off-the-tee as well.

As a resort course in The Bahamas, coastal winds will play a factor this week.

Although the coastal winds will be present, scoring has been consistent at this event. 

The Weather

As of the time of writing this, there is just a ten-percent chance of precipitation for Thursday, Saturday and Sunday as well as just a five-percent chance on Friday. Temperatures will begin at 80-degrees for Thursday and Friday before peaking at 81-degrees on Saturday and dropping to 79-degrees for Sunday. Winds will be at the lowest on Thursday at nine miles-per-hour before reaching 11 miles-per-hour on Friday, 12 miles-per-hour on Saturday and 11 miles-per-hour on Sunday. 

Key Stats

• Strokes Gained: Approach (SG: APP)

• Total Driving

• Birdie or Better Percentage

• Strokes Gained: Putting on Bermuda (SG: PUTT Bermuda)

• Greens in Regulation Percentage (GIR%)

• Par 5 Average Scoring

• Par 3 Average Scoring

• Scrambling

Betting Card

Sepp Straka (+2500)

We haven’t seen Straka since the Ryder Cup, where he was a part of the winning European side. So therefore, there isn’t much form to go off of. What we do have is a proven track record at this event. He placed ninth here a season ago, second in 2023 and tenth in 2022. He also finished the 2025 PGA Tour season seventh in SG: APP, tenth in par-five average scoring, 16th in birdie-or-better percentage, 20th in par-three average scoring, 24th in GIR%, 70th in total driving, 96th in scrambling and 110th in SG: PUTT Bermuda. This is also just a 20-man field so being able to snag a two-time winner on the PGA Tour this season at 25/1 is a win in my books.

Chris Gotterup (+3300)

This is an event that has very little meaning to these guys outside of cashing a check. There isn’t a ton of motivation for a lot of these guys, outside of probably Scottie Scheffler who wants to win every event he steps out for. Either way, one of those guys with added motivation would be Gotterup who is looking to prove that he belongs with these other big names and that his omission from the 2025 Team USA Ryder Cup Team may have been a mistake. He finished last season 19th in scrambling, 22nd in GIR%, 36th in par-five average scoring, 37th in par-three average scoring, 40th in SG: PUTT Bermuda, 48th in birdie-or-better percentage, 54th in total driving and 105th in SG: APP. He last played the Baycurrent Classic where he finished T40th but prior to that placed T10th at the PGA TOUR Championship, T33rd at the BMW Championship, T54th at the FedEx St. Jude Championship, T10th at the 3M Open, third at The Open Championship and won the Genesis Scottish Open. He’ll be making his tournament debut this week.

2024 Betting Card

• Sam Burns (+1400) - T14th

• Brian Harman (+5000) - 12th

2023 Betting Card

• Collin Morikawa (+750) - 7th

• Rickie Fowler (+2200) - 17th

• Wyndham Clark (+2200) - 19th