One of the best golf nerd days of the year was this week when the annual USGA Rewind for 2025 dropped.
For golfers with a USGA Handicap, the GHIN app compiles data from the past year and shares it with users each December, giving a recap of how someone was playing at the beginning of the year compared to the end, their best (and worst rounds) and the easiest and hardest courses they played.
For the Golfweek staff, it gave us a chance to look back at our travels this year and where we played golf, whether on vacation, traveling for work or covering events across the United States and the world.
Here’s a look at every member of the Golfweek editorial staff’s GHIN Rewind and thoughts on their favorite rounds of the year.
Tim Schmitt, managing editor
My year: As I tell my friends, I don’t play often enough, but when I play, it’s usually in an incredible setting. Highlights of 2025 included a Portugal trip that offered gems like Sergio Garcia’s new Torre Course and David McLay Kidd’s Dunas at the Terras da Comporta resort, as well as being the first-ever non-member to play the new Els Club, which will host a new PGA Tour Champions event in 2026. Also, Mauna Lani’s south course in Hawaii gave me two of my new favorite holes, We Ko Pa’s Saguaro and Cholla courses in Arizona were incredible highlights (with a Q&A with Bill Coore to boot), while the beauty of Sedona’s Seven Canyons was something I’ll never forget. Playing the Abaco Club in the Bahamas with Darren Clarke (and having drinks with him afterward) was a thrill, meeting Johnny Morris at the opening of Big Cedar Lodge’s otherworldly Cliffhangers was a rush, as was our annual Raters Challenge (this year at PGA West). Finally, playing the Johnny Miller-designed Rising Sun at Arthur Blank’s Mountain Sky Resort near Yellowstone in Montana was surreal, coming after horseback riding and before skeet shooting. For the record, I was equally poor at all three activities, but oh, so happy. Here’s to 2025!
Todd Kelly, assistant managing editor
My year: I probably played more golf in 2025 than I had in some time. A significant reason for this is my 19-year-old son, a full-on golf nerd and a total gearhead, who has been completely bitten by the golf bug. There’s a neighborhood course that we play quite a bit. You can also find us at the lit driving range a couple nights a week, pounding yellow golf balls after dinner. I haven’t kept handicap for years, but it’s likely skewed to make me look better than I am by the overwhelming number of rounds at the same (pretty easy) local course. Further, my playing history shows that my scores soar when I don’t play a home game.
I managed to get to 24 different golf courses in 2025. Three of them were in northern parts of Arizona, about 3-4 hours from my Phoenix-area home base. Lake Powell, pictured above, was long on my bucket list and finally made the trek to Page, Arizona, to play it. I was also able to play Arizona stalwarts We-Ko-Pa and the Boulders this summer. Two trips to California were also worked in, once to play La Costa ahead of the NCAAs and later to hit the two courses at Indian Wells Golf Resort.
My most memorable venture, though, happened during a golf trip to Montana in July. Our five rounds in five days in Big Sky Country included a visit to the unique Old Works Golf Course, where black slag, leftover from the years of mining in the area, was used in place of sand in the bunkers on this Jack Nicklaus design.
Watch: Old Works Golf Course in Anaconda, Montana
Check out the unusual black bunkers at Old Works Golf Course in Anaconda, Montana.
Adam Schupak, PGA Tour senior writer
My year: My favorite round of the year, hands down, was at Metropolis Country Club in White Plains, New York, my old stomping grounds where I learned the game. Because of COVID, dad duties and life in general, I hadn’t been to my happy place in more than four years. I flew into New York for the Truist Championship in Philly, rented a car and drove to MCC on a Monday when the course was closed. I had the place to myself. Just as I approached the first tee, it started to rain and it never stopped, but the good Lord would never spoil the favorite round of my year. Had a great walk that made me feel like I was in high school again.
Beth Ann Nichols, LPGA senior writer
My year: Most of my golf these days centers around the golf mat pictured above! Our son Jordan, who recently turned 3, loves to hit balls in the backyard, and we sometimes go out to the local driving range where I learned the game from my dad. We had to go back to the whiffle set recently because we think Jordan might be left-handed. A left-handed yard club with a training grip will be arriving for Christmas. Can’t wait for us to tee it up as a family one day! That’s the beauty of this game. It grows with us.
Jason Lusk, travel editor
My year: People keep telling me I have one of the best jobs in the world. They might be right – I get to see a lot of really cool places. My GHIN rewind shows I played 24 courses and 48 rounds in 2025. But it’s woefully incomplete, in any reasonable regard. I’m not sandbagging, I promise, as my year-end 0.4 index will attest. It seems a bit low to me, but it does include 13 tournament rounds. My average 18-hole posted scores averaged 75.5, and I soared into the mid 80s a handful of times, most notably on a day of perfect weather at Whistling Straits – sometimes golf is just really hard. I actually played 64 courses and 102 rounds of sorts for the year, but in many of those rounds I’m skipping holes, playing the course out of order, stopping and starting hours later because I’m focused on shooting photos and video for Golfweek. I shot 41 videos for Golfweek.com this year, and I’m more proud of those than the couple of eagles I made. Highlights of the year included playing in 13 states and three other countries, many of those trips while hosting Golfweek’s Best course raters. Hope to see you out there somewhere in 2026.
Baltusrol Golf Club – Upper Course
Golfweek gives you a look at the newly restored Baltusrol Golf Club’s Upper Course.
David Dusek, equipment editor
My year: Sometime during the week between Christmas and New Year’s Eve last year, inspired by the list of goals Justin Thomas creates each year, I sat down and made a list of goals for myself. One of those goals was to play 35 times, which is a lot more than I played in 2024. For someone living in Connecticut, January started off well with two rounds at Cabot Citrus Farm, followed by two rounds at PGA National in February, but things went downhill from there. Spring was wet and cold in New England. We had more equipment releases this summer than in years past (which meant more testing and less playing for yours truly). Before I knew it, leaves were falling, and I’d only played a half dozen times. My GHIN Handicap didn’t change; it disappeared because I didn’t play enough rounds, but 2026 is right around the corner, and I’ve got a fresh list of goals. And 35 rounds is on there again.
Cameron Jourdan, college/amateur reporter
My year: Hard to beat 2025 for me. Got to play Cypress Point (aka the No. 1 course in Golfweek’s Best Classic Courses in the U.S.) and site of the 2025 Walker Cup. I will never forget crossing 17 Mile Drive, walking around the bend and listening to the waves slam into the rocks below while seeing the 15th hole and 16th in the distance for the first time with my eyes. Had the chance to hit a persimmon 3-wood on 16 with a balata ball on 16. Found land and chipped it to gimme range. The ball is still in my bag. Also spent a week in Oregon and got to play Pacific Dunes, Old MacDonald and Bandon Trails at Bandon Dunes Resort. An unforgettable year.
Nick Stavas, digital producer/reporter
My year: I joined the Golfweek staff halfway through the summer, so I didn’t exactly traverse the globe playing golf this year. With 19 rounds at my home club and only five elsewhere, there’s a severe lack of variety in my 2025 rewind. So, I’ll choose to give a shoutout to the people with whom I got to share this great game. From complete strangers to old high school buddies to famous local news anchors and, most often, my dad, I had the privilege of playing golf with a lot of awesome people in 2025. Cheers, fellas. Here’s to more memories (and more golf courses) in 2026.
Averee Dovsek, instruction
My year: Golf has taken me around the globe, and I have been fortunate enough to play a ton of bucket-list courses. This year, I ventured out to Houston to play Bluejack National. The course was magical to me, not only because the course itself is outstanding, but also because I am a complete foodie. From candy stations scattered around the course to a smokehouse halfway house, the food experience was just as impressive as the golf, and it was all done at a high level.
Beyond the courses I played, one of my most meaningful golf moments this year had nothing to do with my own bag. It was when I surprised my dad with a full set of new irons for his birthday. When I was starting out in the game, he gave me my first set, so being able to return the favor when he least expected it made the moment even sweeter.
Gabe Gudgel, video producer/editor
My year: The long summer evenings that leak into dusk are my favorite time to golf, and from June – September that’s where you’d typically find me, chasing the sunset on the course. The scores came and went, some good, some bad, but seeing a birdie putt drip in on the 18th hole as the sun’s dipping in the western sky… nothing better🤌
One of the coolest rounds I got to experience this year was the new par-3 course that opened up on the Fourth of July at Big Cedar Lodge. The name of the course, Cliffhangers, speaks for itself.
