PGA Championship: Golf’s fourth major has been No. 1 as of late

There’s a not-so-secret, not-so-unspoken conventional wisdom that among the four majors, some are more major than others. The Open Championship has seniority and majesty, the U.S. Open has brawn and muscle, the Masters has tradition and elegance, and the PGA Championship has … a big ol’ trophy and a whole lot of one-time major winners.

But conventional wisdom isn’t true wisdom, and the truth is that the PGA Championship, in the decade of the 2020s, has given golf banger after banger tournaments, delivering a reliable mix of storylines, drama and highlights, year after year.

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Yes, the three best major tournaments of the first half of the decade are Rory McIlroy’s Masters win this year, Bryson DeChambeau’s U.S. Open win at Pinehurst last year and Cam Smith’s victory at the Open Championship in 2022. (Once again: thank heaven Rory finally got that Masters.) But those three tournaments have delivered some less-than-compelling finishes, too — victories by four shots (Jon Rahm, 2023 Masters; Scottie Scheffler, 2024 Masters), five (Dustin Johnson, 2020 Masters) and six strokes (DeChambeau, 2020 U.S. Open, Brian Harman, 2023 Open Championship), for instance.

But consider what we’ve seen in the decade of the 2020s at the PGA Championship:

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2020, TPC Harding Park: This was the first major after the COVID lockdown, so someone could’ve won by 50 and we’d still be grateful. But the entire field came out gunning, and at one point on the back nine, seven players were tied at -10: Scheffler, Johnson, Paul Casey, Collin Morikawa, Tony Finau, Jason Day and Matthew Wolff. Morikawa, playing in his first PGA Championship, ended up winning the Wanamaker thanks to a magnificent eagle on the 16th.

2021, Kiawah Island: Were it not for the small matter of Phil Mickelson torching the PGA Tour and detonating professional golf within a year afterward, this victory would be in Jack-Nicklaus-in-1986 territory. Mickelson held off Brooks Koepka and Louis Oosthuizen, becoming — at age 50 — the oldest player ever to win a major. The massive crowds that surged behind Mickelson on his final holes would be, in effect, his curtain call from the public’s good graces.

2022, Southern Hills: Mito Pereira stood on the 72nd hole with a one-stroke lead … and then immediately fired his tee shot into a nearby creek. Justin Thomas came from seven strokes back to win in a playoff over Will Zalatoris in one of the most tense — and heartbreaking — major moments of the 2020s.

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2023, Oak Hill: Koepka conquered two mountains in winning this tournament, his fifth major. Koepka rebounded from what sure seemed like career-destroying injury to vault his way back among the game’s elite. And he became the first active LIV Golf player to win a major, giving the breakaway tour a serious dose of credibility.

2024, Valhalla: Xander Schauffele held off DeChambeau by a single stroke with a birdie on the 18th, which was dramatic enough all by itself. Add in the fact that Scottie Scheffler spent time in a Louisville jail cell on the morning of his second round, and, well … this was more colorful than your usual major. And that color was prison orange.

So what will 2025 at Quail Hollow bring? The 156-man field includes a range of players, from the world’s best to PGA playing professionals. Within that field, you have plenty of already-hot storylines:

• Whether Jordan Spieth can follow in the footsteps of McIlroy and close out a Career Grand Slam;

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• Whether McIlroy can win at a course that’s one of his favorites and take another step toward the single-season Grand Slam, something never achieved before in this era;

• Whether Scheffler can win a major outside of Augusta, and whether DeChambeau can win a major outside of the U.S. Open;

• Whether Morikawa and Schauffele can snare that tricky third major;

• Whether another of the 16 LIV players in attendance will rep the tour in the way that DeChambeau and Kopeka have;

• Whether Quail Hollow will acquit itself as a major-worthy venue;

And, of course, whether anyone will get themselves arrested again this year.

Through all of golf’s tumultuous last few years, the PGA Championship has delivered. We’ll see very soon if the tournament can keep that streak going this week.