Remembering Who the World of Golf Lost in 2025

Great characters, players and chroniclers of the game left us in 2025 but won’t be forgotten.

John Iacono/Sports Illustrated

From major champions to trailblazers, writers to designers and friends of the game, the world of golf lost a number of its brightest lights in 2025. Before the calendar turns, we take a moment to remember.

Judy Bell, 89

Judy Bell was the first female president of the USGA. / Robert Walker/PGA of America via Getty Images

During a decorated amateur career, Judy Bell never won a USGA event—though no shame in losing to future Hall of Famer Mickey Wright in the semifinals of the 1952 U.S. Girls Junior—but she did become the organization’s first female president in its century-long history. During her tenure, she championed golf programs for youth, minorities and the disabled. 

Bob Bubka, 83

Bob Bubka’s familiar deep voice rang out through golf media centers for decades. His career began in radio on his native Long Island, N.Y., and later included Westwood One, the PGA Tour Radio Network and the U.K. radio station TalkSport. Later in life he co-hosted a podcast called “Musings on Golf.”

George Clifton, 72

The Villages in Florida is the largest golf community in the world and George Clifton’s fingerprints are all over it, as the Clifton Ezell Clifton Golf Design Group (with Clifton’s father Lloyd and Ken Ezell) was the primary architect. He studied Horticulture and Architectural Drawing at the University of Florida and designed several more courses around the Sunshine State.

Tom Cousins, 93

The Georgia native was a successful real estate developer and in 1995 founded the East Lake Foundation, which would help reshape an Atlanta neighborhood and East Lake Golf Club, Bobby Jones’s former home course. In 1998, East Lake hosted its first Tour Championship and continues today as the home to the PGA Tour’s FedEx Cup finale.

Jim Dent, 85

Jim Dent won a dozen times on the Senior PGA Tour. / George Walker / The Tennessean via Imagn Content Services, LLC

Nicknamed “Big Boy” for his 6-foot-3, 225-pound frame, Jim Dent grew up in Augusta, Ga., and worked as a caddie at both Augusta Country Club and Augusta National. He caddied in the Masters at age 15 and later earned a football scholarship to Paine College in Augusta, only to choose golf over football after one year. He won the first two World Long Drive Championships, in 1974 and 1975, and played more than 450 events on the PGA Tour. He never won on the Tour but found considerable success on the 50-and-over circuit, winning 12 times.

John Feinstein, 69

John Feinstein (right) was a Golf Channel commentator in addition to being a columnist and author. / Cy Cyr/Getty Images

The prolific author became a household name for the bestselling A Season on the Brink, where he was embedded for a season with Bob Knight’s 1985-86 Indiana University basketball team, then a decade later was embedded on the golf beat for the seminal golf book A Good Walk Spoiled: Days and Nights on the PGA Tour. He also wrote books on the 2002 U.S. Open at Bethpage Black, Tour caddie Bruce Edwards and PGA Tour Q-School, and was a longtime Golf Digest columnist and Golf Channel commentator.

Ed Fiori, 72

Ed Fiori, shown practicing at the 1997 Masters, beat Hall of Famers in three of his four PGA Tour wins. / The Augusta Chronicle-USA TODAY NETWORK

Known as “The Grip” for his overly strong hand position on the club, Ed Fiori is also known as the first to run down Tiger Woods in the final round of a tournament. The Californian won three other times on the PGA Tour in addition to that victory at the 1996 Quad Cities Classic, including two more wins over Hall of Famers (Tom Weiskopf, Tom Kite) in playoffs.

John Fischer, 82

The Cincinnati native was a lawyer by trade and a student of golf history whose writings appeared on SI.com and its golf predecessor, Morning Read.

Cody “Beef” Franke, 31

The PGA professional from Wisconsin, who called himself a “common instructor for the common golfer,” found fame as a golf influencer and Barstool Sports personality while being known for remaining humble and unfailingly polite, always doffing his cap when greeting fans. He teamed up with Brad Dalke and Francis Ellis to win the Internet Invitational, which was filmed in August and aired after Franke’s death. 

Mike Hill, 86

The younger brother of 13-time PGA Tour winner Dave Hill, Mike left his native Michigan to play collegiately at Arizona State and served in the Air Force before turning pro. He won three times on the PGA Tour then became one of the top Senior PGA Tour players of his era, winning 18 times between 1990 and 1996. In 1991 he won five times and earned over $1 million—even more than Corey Pavin won that year in leading the PGA Tour.

Jumbo Ozaki, 78

Jumbo Ozaki made 19 starts at the Masters with a high finish of T8 in 1973. / The Augusta Chronicle-USA TODAY NETWORK

First a pro baseball player in Japan, Masashi “Jumbo” Ozaki turned to golf at age 23 and won the Japan PGA Championship the following year. The 12-time Japan Golf Tour money leader and 94-time winner played sparingly on the PGA Tour, never making more than nine starts in a year with a career high of T4 at the 1993 Memorial Tournament, and spent more than 200 weeks in the top 10 of the Official World Golf Ranking between 1989 and 1998. Jumbo—nicknamed for his size and length of the tee— also was a singer who charted three times in Japan and had two brothers who played professionally, nicknamed Joe and Jet.

Dave Pelz, 85

Dave Pelz helped many major winners with their short game, including Phil Mickelson. / David Cannon/Getty Images

Dave Pelz joked that his “perfect 0-22 record” against Jack Nicklaus while playing golf at Indiana University inspired him to study the short game, and he would eventually leave a job at NASA to do it full-time. He ran short game schools, wrote books, designed clubs and training aids, and helped a number of major-winning pros, most notably Phil Mickelson, who said on X after Pelz died that “I owe so much of my success to the many things he taught me.”

Jay Sigel, 81

Before he won eight times as a pro on the then-Senior PGA Tour, the Pennsylvania native was in the insurance business and a standout amateur who won consecutive U.S. Amateurs in 1982 and 1983, the U.S. Mid-Amateur in 1983 (he’s the only golfer to win both amateur titles in the same year) and was three times the low am at the Masters.

J.C. Snead, 84

Sam Snead’s nephew won eight times on the PGA Tour, played in three Ryder Cups and finished second to Tommy Aaron at the 1973 Masters. Before embarking on his pro golf career at age 27, J.C. Snead played baseball in the Washington Senators’s farm system.

Bob Uecker, 90

Bob Uecker was Mr. Baseball but also a golfer. / Mike De Sisti / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

Baseball was his life but Bob Uecker was also a golf fanatic, first picking up the clubs during offseasons when he played in the majors. He joked to Golf.com about how there was no excuse for not being able to hit a ball that’s not moving with no one around talking, yet it remained a frustrating activity. “I guess I need people screaming obscenities about me and my family, like when I was catching in the big leagues.”

Kultida Woods, 78

Kultida Woods watched son Tiger play at the 2012 Honda Classic. / Allen Eyestone / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

While Earl Woods was the more out-front and outspoken parent during Tiger Woods’s formative golf years, mother Tida (as she was known) was the quiet behind-the-scenes force who encouraged her son to wear red in the final rounds of tournaments. Tida believed “it was my power color,” Tiger said. 

Fuzzy Zoeller, 74

Fuzzy Zoeller, pictured at the Par 3 Contest at the 2016 Masters, was a longtime fan favorite. / Michael Madrid-Imagn Images

Frank Urban “Fuzzy” Zoeller played his entire pro golf career with a bad back, having been injured when he was undercut at the hoop while playing for his New Albany (Ind.) High basketball team. But his easygoing, whistling-while-playing demeanor belied that fact, as did 10 PGA Tour wins and two majors—the 1979 Masters, the last won by a first-time competitor, and the 1984 U.S. Open, won in a playoff over Greg Norman. Zoeller had a refreshment in his hand outside the Augusta National clubhouse at the 1997 Masters when he made racially insensitive jokes about Tiger Woods; years later a vodka brand bore his name.