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The major championship season started with a thunderous boom in 2025 and unfortunately ended with a bit of a thud.
As thrilling as Rory McIlroy's roller-coaster ride to a playoff victory at The Masters was, The Open Championship lacked any sort of similar theatrics.
No wind or rain pelted Royal Portrush. No one could rain of the parade of World No. 1 Scottie Scheffler, either.
Scheffler became the ninth professional golfer in history to win an Open, a PGA Championship and The Masters with a resounding four-shot win on a sunny and scenic Dunluce links Sunday. Scheffler's second major championship of 2025 makes him a virtual lock to win Player of the Year by season's end unless McIlroy can somehow get on a hot streak during the FedEx Cup playoffs.
We don't love that golf's major championship season comes and goes in a blink of an eye, ending in mid-July. The good news this year is there's an epic 2025 Ryder Cup coming to keep fan interest high through the end of September.
Let's put The Open and 2025's major championship season into perspective heading into the back half of the PGA Tour schedule:
Scheffler's run at a career grand slam
With his nearly flawless performance at The Open, it seems almost inevitable that Scheffler join McIlroy with a career grand slam. But until he secures that missing U.S. Open, let's take stock of his building legacy in the game.
He joins 29 other male professional golfers with at least four major championship victories. Considering that most of the four-time major winners are from a bygone era - Old and Young Tom Morris, Willie Park Sr., Willie Anderson, Jim Barnes and Bobby Locke - it's safe to assume that Scheffler's four major victories in three years (2022-2025) easily surpasses the accomplishments of Ernie Els and Raymond Floyd, who both took at least 17 years to get there.
The Open was his 17th career win on the PGA Tour (not including his gold medal at the 2024 Olympic Games). That number ranks in a tie for 50th all-time with Jim Furyk, Curtis Strange and Harold McSpaden. Few players in history have produced such a historic three-year run, and he's just getting started. With his consistency - plus a lack there of from his peers - it's easy to envision Scheffler rocketing past double-digit majors in the next five years.
“I can’t help but think that we are on an inevitable march towards one of the greatest careers in the history of golf,” said Brandel Chamblee on Golf Channel's Live From broadcast. - Jason Scott Deegan
Rory’s whirlwind year
He may have fallen just short of a double fairy-tale year, but after the ecstasy and catharsis of the 2025 Masters and a tie for seventh at Royal Portrush after a post-Augusta lull, it has been another excellent year for McIlroy, who now stands one major away for tying Nick Faldo for the most by a European in the modern era.
In the nearer term, McIlroy has to be salivating about the opportunity to try and beat Team USA at Bethpage Black in the 2025 Ryder Cup, and if he were to add the 2025 FedEx Cup (for the fourth time in his career) to the Masters and the 2025 Players Championship, he would mount an impressive challenge to Scheffler for the PGA Tour’s player of the year. —Tim Gavrich
Rating Royal Portrush among Open Championship venues
The top end of the championship links golf world is rarefied air, and after hosting just two modern Opens, Royal Portrush has cemented a place high up in the rota as both an exercise in interesting golf viewing and a commercial venture for The R&A.
But how does it rank relative to the rest of the rota?
The Old Course at St. Andrews is untouchable as the greatest Open venue. Championship golf in the game’s Sistine Chapel is sacred and deserves to be preserved and considered as long as possible. The course itself is everything we love about links golf, and its history and sense of place are unparalleled.
From a couch-viewing perspective, I’d also place Muirfield and Royal St. Georges above Portrush. Part of what has always appealed to me about links golf is how close to the ground so many courses and features sit. Muirfield and St. Georges have that feel in spades, and St Georges choppy fairways and blind shots add a dimension of awkwardness that is very rare in golf.
Portrush has incredible scenery and a stellar collection of holes in its own right. But the way its greens tend to sit above their surroundings and relatively few blind shots cause it to scan a little differently than its links counterparts, which tend to sit down in their dunes. In my own personal ranking of courses played, it sits firmly inside the top 10. —T.G.
Portrush’s (and the Emerald Isle’s) Open future
Although R&A CEO Mark Darbon downplayed any formal rhythm to the rota in his press conference on Wednesday, golf’s oldest major has not been held in the same country in consecutive years since 2015 and 2016.
Royal Portrush’s success as a venue and Ireland’s enthusiastic embrace of the event would argue for the Open returning as often as possible. Such a scenario could mean a return to Royal Portrush as early as 2028, which is the next open Open slot. But while I would be glad to see the oldest major back across the Irish Sea as soon as possible, I predict the next time that happens, it will be to allow Portmarnock Golf Club just north of Dublin to make history as the first course outside the United Kingdom to host the championship. Years of rumblings, plus the R&A contesting the 2019 Amateur Championship at the club, seem like a strong signal that it is next on the Open list. If Portmarnock should happen in 2028, look for Portrush to get the next Ireland/Northern Ireland Open, perhaps in 2031 for another six-year gap. —T.G.
Too-early look-ahead to 2026
The last putt barely dropped in the 2025 major championship season (it feels bizarre that it's all over before August 1), but I'm already excited for next year's slate of major venues. Weather-permitting, Pennsylvania's Aronimink Golf Club should be a terrific, classic Donald Ross-designed PGA Championship venue where I expect Philadelphia fans to show why they're some of the loudest in sports. And the ongoing journey to put Philly back on the map as a hub of municipal golf makes for a compelling side-story.
The U.S. Open will return to Shinnecock Hills, which might be my personal favorite of that major championship's venues. Firm and fast conditions - in contrast to soupy Oakmont Country Club this year - are a virtual lock, and the severity of Shinnecock's slopes tends to cause some complaints. Scottie Scheffler trying to secure the career grand slam on his 30th birthday could be incredible theater.
Royal Birkdale in England should make for a fantastic capper to the year's majors when it welcomes the Open for the 11th time. Memories of Justin Rose's breakout performance in 1998 and Jordan Spieth's all-over-the-place win in 2017, plus some recent tweaks by Open rota doctors Mackenzie & Ebert that have the English links looking its best ever, should make for a wonderful week before we lament the interval before 2027's major slate. —T.G.
What are your takes on 2025's majors? Let us know in the comments below.
Comments (1)
The years two best "majors" that provided the most exciting of finishes were the Masters with Rory duking it out with Justin, followed by the Amundi/Evian Championship with Grace Kim and Jeeno Thitikul trading blows in their playoff holes. Most entertaining.