The outcome of the 2025 BBC Sports Personality of the Year Award was announced at a ceremony in Manchester on Thursday evening. You will, of course, be aware that the winner was Rory McIlroy, the first golfer to receive the accolade for 36 years.
No one could argue that it wasn’t deserved. The Irishman was absolutely at centre stage as Europe retained the Ryder Cup in New York in September but surely the highpoint was when he won a dramatic Masters Tournament in April to complete the career Grand Slam, after over a decade of seeking to achieve that goal. “When you want something so much, the obstacle becomes yourself,” he said. “I’ve had my chances at Augusta. I’ve been trying for 15 years and the heartbreaks, the way it finished, made it even sweeter.” Adding to joy of the evening for him was that the European Ryder Cuppers were named team of the year, and Tommy Fleetwood was also in attendance for the presentation of that trophy.
The awards began in 1954. There have been 19 winners from athletics, eight from Formula 1 and seven each from football and tennis. McIlroy is only the third golfer to be so honoured. The first was in 1957, when the recipient was Dai Rees, captain of the victorious Great Britain Ryder Cup team. (Ireland was not added to the team name until 1973.) It had been 20 years since the hosts had last won the match; it would require another 28, plus the addition of golfers from continental Europe, before the Americans would again be beaten. In the meantime, until now, only one other golfer had received the trophy.
What a year for @McIlroyRory, the 2025 BBC Sports Personality of the Year https://t.co/dwv9Bqg3BA pic.twitter.com/f0rbbZURqs
— DP World Tour (@DPWorldTour) December 18, 2025
That was Nick Faldo in 1989, the year he won the Masters for the first time. The previous year Sandy Lyle won the green jacket but only came third in the SPOTY vote. Hey, who knows what or why? In 1990, Faldo won the Open and the Masters. I remember being at a photo shoot for some article or other that November and asking if he fancied his chances of retaining his title. “Not a chance,” he said. “It’s going to be Gazza.” For those too young to know and/or not particularly interested in football, Paul Gascoigne had been both the stand-out player and personality in England’s run to the semi-finals of the World Cup at Italia ’90. And Faldo was right. That time he didn’t even make the top-three.
Against this comparative parsimony, non-native golfers have fared rather better. Past golfing honorees as overseas sporting personality of the year – now called the World Sport Star of the Year Award – have been Gary Player, Lee Trevino, Jack Nicklaus, Seve Ballesteros, Greg Norman (twice), Mark O’Meara, Tiger Woods (perhaps surprisingly only once) and Francesco Molinari. Only the latter, in 2018, emerged victorious after public votes started to be assessed in this category. Previously the verdict had been arrived at following the deliberations of a group of sports’ journalists, for which I gather the word ‘hostelry’ is the collective noun.
Anyhow, Rory has ended the jinx, if a jinx is what it was. “It has really been the year dreams are made of,” he said. Indeed it has – it should be a very merry Christmas for McIlroy. I will be with you again in what I hope will be a very happy new year.
Related: A road to somewhere?
You can follow Robert Green on Twitter @robrtgreen and enjoy his other blog f-factors.com as well as his golf archive on robertgreen-golf.com
