While newly-crowned Open champion Scottie Scheffler has stretched his lead at the top of the world rankings in 2025, beneath the World No.1, there have been plenty of significant changes.
It’s been a good year for Justin Thomas and Russell Henley, who have moved into the top five of the OWGR after securing wins.
After the BMW Championship in Maryland, the second leg of the FedEx Cup Playoffs, Thomas had risen to No.5, having started the year at No.19, a rise of 14 spots.
Henley, meanwhile, has jumped 13 spots from No.17 to No.4 after a strong 2025.
But there have been some even more dramatic moves when looking at the rest of the world’s current top 30.
Here, we look at the seven biggest climbers.
1. Chris Gotterup – Up 164 spots
- Current ranking: 27
- End of 2024 ranking: 191
Spaun’s ascent has been dramatic, but there’s a player in the current top 30 who has made an even bigger surge, rising a whopping 164 places since the start of the year.
Chris Gotterup won the Myrtle Beach Classic in 2024, but it was an outlier and poor form in the rest of that year meant he ended it only just inside the world’s top 200.
But the predictions that he was a future star after a glittering college career are coming good. After dipping to 228th, Gotterup played some solid golf in the middle of the year and then rocketed up the rankings with a stunning and surprising win at the Scottish Open, followed by third place on his Open Championship debut.
Only 158th when arriving in Scotland, Gotterup finished his incredible fortnight on the links in 27th, his current ranking. Take a bow!
2. J.J. Spaun – Up 113 spots
- Current ranking: 6
- End of 2024 ranking: 119
While Rose and English have made significant leaps to move into the top 10, no one inside that elite bracket has come from further back than current No.6 J.J. Spaun.
The 34-year-old was a lowly 169th in the OWGR in June 2024 before a decent finish to the year saw him end it in 119th. But Spaun has really put his foot down in 2025. Second place in The Players Championship was his third top three of the campaign and moved him to 25th.
He reached the giddy heights of 8th with his stunning breakthrough win in the US Open at Oakmont and nudged up further to 6th after finishing runner-up in last week’s FedEx St. Jude.
3. Harris English – Up 63 spots
- Current ranking: 9
- End of 2024 ranking: 72
In contrast to Straka, English has had a superb year in the majors with second places at both the PGA Championship and The Open.
He made his first big climb up the OWGR in January when victory in the Farmers Insurance Open at Torrey Pines moved the American from 75th to 34th.
His runner-up finish at the PGA took him into the top 20, and finishing as Scheffler’s nearest challenger at Royal Portrush moved English into the top 10, where he now resides at No.9.
4. Ben Griffin – Up 48 spots
- Current ranking: 17
- End of 2024 ranking: 65
The perception of Griffin at the start of the year was that of a decent player but nothing more. He spent much of 2024 hovering around 100th, although he hinted at improvement with a strong second half of the year.
In 2025, he’s really kicked on, his biggest rankings boost coming when following a win at the Charles Schwab Challenge with a second at Memorial in back-to-back starts.
Ninth place at St. Jude secured an eighth top 15 in his last 10 starts, and he’s now a top 20 player and being mentioned as a possible pick for the US Ryder Cup team.
5. Justin Rose – Up 36 spots
- Current ranking: 11
- End of 2024 ranking: 47
Rose’s results seem to have a feast or famine quality about them these days. But the good stuff that he’s sprinkled throughout 2025 has helped him surge into the top 10 for the first time in five years.
The Englishman lost a play-off to Rory McIlroy at Augusta National to move from 39th to 12th, and after a dip, he’s found form again this summer.
Sixth in the Scottish Open and 16th in The Open, he produced a late flourish to win the FedEx St. Jude Championship to climb 11 places to ninth. Going into 2025, Rose had been fighting to retain his status in the top 50.
6. Sepp Straka – Up 24 spots
- Current ranking: 12
- End of 2024 ranking: 36
The Austrian has had a stunning 2025, his year highlighted by victories in January’s American Express and May’s Truist Championship. He jumped to 7th after a third place at Memorial.
Now 12th, having started 2024 outside the top 30, Straka’s rise could have been even more dramatic but for a strangely poor year in the majors.
He missed the cut at The Masters, PGA and US Open and only managed 52nd at The Open.
7. Cameron Young – Up 19 spots
- Current ranking: 20
- End of 2024 ranking: 39
Young struggled at the start of the year and actually dropped to 67th at one point as results didn’t improve.
But back-to-back top fours in the Canadian Open and US Open in June started a forward move, and he’s jumped into the top 20 thanks to a breakthrough first victory in the Wyndham Championship (by six shots!) and a fifth at the FedEx St. Jude Championship.
It looks very likely now that he’ll soon beat his best OWGR rank of 13th.
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Article Link: OGWR: 2025’s biggest climbers as Ryder Cup hopeful makes HUGE surge