Rory McIlroy’s long-awaited Masters triumph in April finally unlocked golf’s most exclusive door, making him the first player in 25 years to complete the career Grand Slam.
But Scottie Scheffler’s two-major surge in 2025 hinted that the next name on that list may not be far away.
McIlroy, needing an 11th attempt to seal the set, survived a bruising, topsy-turvy Sunday at Augusta National, squandering a four-shot lead before regrouping, emerging from a logjam of contenders and winning in a sudden-death playoff.
When a four-foot birdie putt dropped for victory, the Northern Irishman flung his arms skyward, then collapsed to his knees in tears, a raw release of years of pressure and one of the defining images of golf’s year.
“There wasn’t much joy in that reaction. It was all relief,” McIlroy said after the win. “Then the joy came pretty soon after that. But that was a decade-plus of emotion that came out of me there.”
By winning the Masters, McIlroy joined Gene Sarazen, Ben Hogan, Gary Player, Jack Nicklaus and Tiger Woods as the only men to complete the career Grand Slam of golf’s four majors.
That elite group could soon have a new member.
World No. 1 Scheffler showed why he remains a cut above his peers in 2025, leading the PGA Tour with six wins, including convincing major victories at the PGA Championship and the British Open. He finished fourth at the Masters and seventh at the U.S. Open.
Scheffler, who won the Masters in 2022 and 2024, now owns three legs of the career Grand Slam and will get his first chance to complete the set at Shinnecock Hills, where the final round of the U.S. Open will be played on the American’s 30th birthday.
The dominance displayed by Scheffler, who won the PGA Tour Player of the Year award for a fourth straight year, has drawn comparisons to 15-time major champion Woods. Barring injury, Scheffler will be the betting favorite at every major next year.
“I don’t think we thought the golfing world would see someone as dominant as Tiger come through so soon, and here’s Scottie sort of taking that throne of dominance,” two-time major champion Xander Schauffele said at the British Open.
“You can’t even say he’s on a run. He’s just been killing it for over two years now.”
American J.J. Spaun enjoyed a remarkable resurgence in 2025, rising from journeyman status to major champion thanks to an improbable walk-off birdie putt from 64 feet to win the U.S. Open by two shots in punishing conditions at treacherous Oakmont.
A late-afternoon storm saturated the course during the final round and caused a 96-minute weather delay, but a fearless Spaun, who appeared out of contention after five early bogeys, wielded his putter like a magic wand down the closing stretch for a life-changing victory.
“It’s definitely like a storybook, fairytale ending, kind of an underdog fighting back, not giving up, never quitting,” Spaun said. “With the rain and everything, and then the putt, you couldn’t write a better story. I’m just so fortunate to be on the receiving end of that.”
New York’s Bethpage Black hosted the game’s most prestigious team event, but this year golf became a sideshow to an intense atmosphere at a Ryder Cup played amid torrents of verbal abuse and inappropriate behavior from the home crowd.
McIlroy, a fan favorite most weeks on the PGA Tour, was the primary target.
After Europe won the Ryder Cup on foreign soil for the first time in 13 years, he said “golf should be held to a higher standard than this.”
On the course, Europe narrowly avoided the biggest collapse in Ryder Cup history, holding off a Sunday charge from the U.S.
Tyrrell Hatton, in the penultimate match, secured the decisive half-point in his duel with Collin Morikawa, pushing Europe to the 14 1/2 points needed to retain the trophy.
TGL, the indoor league co-founded by Woods and McIlroy, held its inaugural season in 2025, with the Atlanta Drive team, Patrick Cantlay, Billy Horschel, Justin Thomas and Lucas Glover, claiming the title.
The league, designed to complement the professional golf calendar, will open its second season Dec. 28 with several enhancements, including new hole designs and a larger green.
Earlier in the year, optimism grew that the PGA Tour and Saudi-funded LIV Golf were close to finalizing the framework agreement announced in June 2023, but a deal to end golf’s civil war no longer appears imminent.
Earlier this month, LIV Golf CEO Scott O’Neil said he remains in regular contact with PGA Tour CEO Brian Rolapp, though the sides are not in “serious negotiation” at this point.
