Rory McIlroy became a seven-time European Number One on Sunday as he lifted the Harry Vardon Trophy for the fourth season in a row.
Since first hoisting the silverware in 2012, the Northern Irishman has won it in as many seasons as he hasn't, surpassing the tally of the great Seve Ballesteros and sitting just one behind Colin Montgomerie's all-time record.
Here, we take a whistlestop tour of each of his victorious seasons.
2012
McIlroy had already finished second twice on the Race to Dubai in 2009 and 2011, when he was denied by an astonishing season from Luke Donald which saw the Englishman claim three wins, two runner-up finishes and five other top tens from just 13 starts.
He would not be stopped in 2012, however, and after starting the season with four top fives - two in World Golf Championships events - he never dropped out of the top six on the year-long standings.
A second Major victory at the US PGA Championship had him back on top after a slow summer and following the Miracle at Medinah, two top threes in Asia were followed by the first of three DP World Tour Championship titles.
2014
McIlroy has recently declared that 2025 is the best season of his career and it has had to go some way to eclipse the brilliance of 11 years prior.
He started with back-to-back top tens in the desert and then secured a then career-best finish of eighth at the Masters Tournament, an event that would soon become his Holy Grail.
Victory at the BMW PGA Championship accelerated his season further but throughout July and August he would not only cement his place as the world's best but a generational talent.
A third Major Championship victory at The Open meant he was a Green Jacket away from the career Grand Slam and two weeks later he won the WGC-Bridgestone Invitational.
Within a week he had a second US PGA Championship title and three wins in three starts across four weeks had catapulted him to megastardom.
A third consecutive Ryder Cup win was then followed by back-to-back runner-up finishes in Scotland and Dubai for a man at the peak of his powers.
2015
The 2015 campaign may not have been the juggernaut of 2014 but it still brought three victories and a third Harry Vardon Trophy in four years as McIlroy spent the bulk of the year at World Number One.
The almost customary good start to the season brought a second Dubai Desert Classic win and after finishing fourth at Augusta in his first tilt at the Grand Slam, he won the WGC-Cadillac Match Play.
May brought the disappointment of missed cuts at Wentworth and in his home open and worse was to follow as McIlroy injured his ankle playing football and missed his Open defence.
By the time the season finale came around, the race with Danny Willett was so tight that effectively whoever finished higher that week would take the title and McIlroy duly delivered, lifting the sceptre for a second time at the DP World Tour Championship.
2022
Astonishingly, McIlroy would claim just two more DP World Tour wins over the next seven seasons and while a tournament win eluded him in 2022, his consistency saw him move third alone on the list of Race to Dubai winners.
A tie for 12th in Abu Dhabi would be his only finish outside the top ten in ten appearances and he followed it with a top three in Dubai.
Major season saw him finish second at the Masters, eighth at the US PGA Championship, fifth at the U.S. Open and third at The Open before another runner-up finish came at Wentworth.
Fourth-place finishes in Italy and Scotland were followed by a return to World Number One and while he headed to the season finale with Ryan Fox hot on his heels, another fourth place was enough to keep the Kiwi at bay.
2023
If 2022 was steady, 2023 was a return to the spectacular as McIlroy dominated proceedings from early in the year.
A first Rolex Series victory in Dubai was followed by a semi-final play-off loss at the WGC-Dell Technologies Match Play and from that moment on, McIlroy never left the top of the Rankings.
He missed the cut at the Masters and finished seventh at the US PGA Championship before he missed out on breaking his Major drought when finishing second by one shot at the U.S. Open.
A spectacular finish brought him a second Rolex Series title at the Genesis Scottish Open before he finished sixth at The Open, 16th on home soil and seventh at Wentworth.
He then helped Europe win back the Ryder Cup with a career-best performance in Rome and he had already sealed his fifth Race to Dubai title before finishing 22nd at the season finale.
2024
Only Peter Oosterhuis, Ballesteros and Montgomerie had ever won the Harry Vardon Trophy three years in a row in the DP World Tour era but McIlroy would join them in a dominant 2024.
After finishing runner-up to Tommy Fleetwood at the Dubai Invitational, he made it back-to-back wins at the Dubai Desert Classic and hit top sot in the Rankings - he would not be removed.
Decent performances at the Masters and US PGA Championship were followed by heartbreak at the U.S. Open as missed short putts saw a Major slip through his fingers.
A missed cut at The Open was sandwiched by top fives at the Genesis Scottish Open and Olympic Games before he agonisingly finished runner-up by one shot at the Amgen Irish Open and lost in a play-off at the BMW PGA Championship in back-to-back weeks.
A third-place finish at the Abu Dhabi HSBC Championship - now the penultimate event of the season and part of the DP World Tour Play-Offs - handed him a convincing lead heading into the season finale and he completed the Dubai double to match Balesteros' tally of six season-long titles.
2025
It had been nearly 11 years since McIlroy had won a Major but in 2025 all that tension and expectation would be released in spectacular fashion.
Finishing fourth at the Hero Dubai Desert Classic will have been a disappointment by his standards at that event but two wins on the PGA TOUR meant he went to the Masters brimming with confidence.
A play-off win over Justin Rose finally sealed Major number five and the career Grand Slam and while there was still much to be achieved, the rest of 2025 felt like one big victory lap.
Not that McIlroy took his foot off the gas, following average showings at the US PGA Championship and U.S. Open with a second-place finish at the Genesis Scottish and a top ten on home soil at The Open.
He conjured up unquestionably the biggest cheer of the year as he eagled the last to take the Amgen Irish Open to a play-off which he duly won and then came the Ryder Cup, where he and 11 other Europeans overcame a hostile crowd and stunning US fightback to win in New York.
Marco Penge's fantastic three-win season had kept the Race to Dubai very much alive but McIlroy finished third in Abu Dhabi and then lost in a play-off in Dubai to make it four in a row, a feat only previously achieved by Montgomerie.
