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Naples, Fla. – The sun peeks through the Florida palms and Brock Henderson puts on sunglasses before beginning a drilling drive that cuts through a cloudless midday sky. Shades, Henderson says, were a welcome accessory again in 2025 after eye surgery a year ago.
Henderson, no longer a surprise and the best golfer in the country, reached the finals of the LPGA Tour’s limited-edition season for the 11th time. There are already eleven seasons. She’s growing up, whether fans like to hear it or not. Life changing, of course. Mostly for the better. She won again on home soil at the CPKC Women’s Open at the Mississauga Golf and Country Club in August, and it’s no surprise that the club, which has a plaque on the first tee that honors each of the men who have won the RBC Canadian Open in the past, also gives Henderson a well-deserved honor.
It’s been more than a decade for Henderson on the LPGA Tour, and much remains the same — her team, her smile, her swing. This season, however, was both exciting and fiery. Her win at the CPKC Women’s Open in August was her first top-10 result of the season in a stroke-play tournament (the other came at T-Mobile Matchplay, where she made the quarterfinals and technically tied for ninth). His only other result came in the season finale at the CMA Group Tour Championship. She was happy, of course, with a top 10 (she tied for seventh, while 22-year-old Geno Thatikul, the game’s top-ranked player, won for the third time this season and again at Tiberon Golf Club, once again claiming the $4 million first-place prize) to end her year.
Now like Thitikul, Henderson was once a young star with unlimited potential. Henderson certainly isn’t old by any means, but with more than 10 years under her belt as a professional, she can’t help but go back to where she came from as she wonders where she’s going.
“I look back at who I was in 2015, and I loved the person that I was, and I loved the golfer and how I got through the different weeks and the journey and life on the LPGA Tour. I always try to learn from it. I don’t try to go backwards,” Henderson told SportsNet, “but I try to learn from what was really successful and what I tried to move forward.”
Henderson’s win in Mississauga was one of three by a non-American on the LPGA Tour this year in her home country, and she was appropriately included in the LPGA’s season-ending Rolex Awards. Henderson wore a cream two-piece suit with his sister, Brittany, in a matching color dress. The carpet is green, the sparks are bright, the timepieces are shiny, and the surf and turf are beautiful. Henderson always impresses this night (in part because she’s a Rolex ambassador) since she’s been to this party more than half a dozen times.
Like everything else in his career, he has done most of it before and a long time ago.
Don’t think, though, that it will ever get old.
And she remains so motivated to play well, win and do better than ever.
“You have to pick yourself up because (this) is a dream come true and it continues,” Henderson said. “I feel like you can never take it for granted. You just have to wake up and realize what a dream it is and how grateful I am for all the opportunities I’ve been given and try to make the most of it.”
But how can one make sense of a year where there was an exceptionally high but otherwise mediocre collection of efforts?
For 2026, she’s hoping for some more Miss Consistency vs. Miss Congeniality.
Henderson said the first thing she’s aiming for is a 15th win. That’s a nice round number, he said with a smile. But the main thing she is focusing on is scoring average. Not that she had a bad season in the category — she was 15th — but a full two shots back of the title, which topped the Tour (albeit with the lowest season-long scoring average in history). And almost all of his stroke-gain numbers were basically the same year over year.
A microcosm of his year as a whole? She was 81st in strokes gained: approach, a stat she was 42nd in last year, but an impressive 14th in greens in regulation. She hit a ton of greens but just wasn’t close enough, which led to fewer scoring opportunities.
“For most of my career, my ball-striking has been the best part of my game, and I’ve always counted on it a lot — so when it’s not going well, like this past year, you feel it. It puts pressure on different parts of the game that need to step up,” Henderson said.
Henderson isn’t done yet for 2025, however, as she and fellow Canadian Corey Connors will play together once again in an LPGA/PGA Tour team event, the Grant Thornton Invitational, just before the holiday season. The Canadian duo finished second in their debut in 2023 and fourth last year.
She will also enjoy winter time cheering on her hometown Ottawa Senators, with whom she signed an ambassadorship deal in 2024.
Senators owner Michael Andloer told SportsNet in September that it was important to look at the identity of the squad when he bought the team, and, being an avid golfer himself, he wanted to contact Henderson to see what they could do.
“Knowing that Brooke was from Smiths Falls, you look at her makeup, the way she carries herself, she’s everything that’s Canadian. And when I look at the city and how authentic it is and the people of Ottawa, she definitely represents our brand,” Andlauer said. “I want her to represent it. She typifies it. And she’s a champion.”
Henderson was made a champion by his father (who actually grew up playing hockey against now-Senators president Cyril Leader), who remains his coach, and sister, who remains his caddy. The team is tight and always there for him. In 2025, however, he added a new member to the circle — as Henderson began dating minor league pitcher Ricky Castro. Castro, who cheered Henderson on from afar when she won in August but has since gone to a few tournaments in person, pitches for the Wichita Wind Surge, the Double-A affiliate of the Minnesota Twins, and they began dating in March after meeting at Henderson’s home club in Florida.
Henderson said she is “really grateful” for the help from Castro, who certainly understands the life of a professional athlete.
“I travel for a living, and all the demands that come (with that) mentally and physically. And so it’s been great to learn about his game as well. Being a pitcher and a golfer, they have a lot in common, and I feel like we’ve been able to learn from each other and help each other, which is really cool,” Henderson said.
In Canada and beyond, Henderson has a lot of support from a lot of people. He has given them all a lot to be happy about, even in a strange year like 2025, where there was an incredible victory firmly in the middle of some surprising weeks.
Henderson isn’t necessarily grappling with an uncertain future, but rather that each passing success changes his legacy a little more, which is great for him, and as fun as it is now in 2015 for followers and friends.
“I’m a completely different person, fundamentally,” Henderson said of his 28 vs. 18. “Hopefully the fundamentals are still the same, but a lot of things have changed inside and outside and inside my family and my golf game — and that’s life. You’re always adjusting to different changes.”
