One reason why golf’s biggest story followed Rory McIlroy wherever he went was that it concerned an achievement that is incredibly hard to accomplish.
The Northern Irishman won the Masters in 2025, which meant he completed the career grand slam, which means he has won the Masters, the PGA Championship, the US Open and The Open Championship.
McIlroy completed the slam on his 11th attempt at Augusta National, a course that more than suits his booming long game and ball-striking. ‘Is Rory going to win?’ was the biggest question every April because so few players have done it.
He has joined just Gene Sarazen, Ben Hogan, Jack Nicklaus, Gary Player and Tiger Woods as the only players to have won all four men’s golf majors. Below, we have a table of each player, their total major wins, and the year they completed the grand slam.
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| Player | Slam Completed | Total Majors |
| Gene Sarazen | 1935 Masters | 7 (1922 PGA and US, 1923 PGA, 1932 US and Open, 1933 PGA, 1935 Masters) |
| Ben Hogan | 1953 Open Championship | 9 (1946 PGA, 1948 PGA and US, 1950 US, 1951 Masters and US, 1953 Masters, US and Open) |
| Jack Nicklaus | 1966 Open Championship | 18 (1962 US, 1963 Masters and PGA, 1965 Masters, 1966 Masters and Open, 1967 US, 1970 Open, 1971 PGA, 1972 Masters and US, 1973 PGA, 1975 Masters and PGA, 1978 Open, 1980 PGA and US, 1986 Masters) |
| Gary Player | 1965 US Open | 9 (1959 Open, 1961 Masters, 1962 PGA, 1965 US, 1968 Open, 1972 PGA, 1974 Masters and Open, 1978 Masters) |
| Tiger Woods | 2000 Open Championship | 15 (1997 Masters, 1999 PGA, 2000 PGA, US and Open, 2001 Masters, 2002 Masters and US, 2005 Masters and Open, 2006 PGA and Open, 2008 US, 2019 Masters) |
| Rory McIlroy | 2025 Masters | 5 (2011 US Open, 2012 PGA, 2014 Open and PGA, 2025 Masters) |
Nicklaus and Woods have technically won the grand slam three times, as they’ve won each major at least three times. In 2001, Woods won his own slam – the Tiger Slam – as at that point, he held every major trophy at the same time. He won the PGA Championship, the US Open and the Open in 2000, which set it up for an Augusta crescendo.
Several legends of the sport came close to completing the grand slam, but it never happened. Lee Trevino won six majors, but never the Masters (he won two each at the other three majors).
Pub quiz sheets up and down the country have undoubtedly been filled with Arnold Palmer and Tom Watson’s names under the ‘Who has completed the golf grand slam?’ question, but they are wrong. The pair respectively won seven and eight majors, but neither won the PGA Championship.
Remarkably, Sam Snead came second or tied second four times at the US Open, having ticked every other box, and Byron Nelson and Raymond Floyd were an Open Championship short of history too.
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Who else could join the grand slam golf club?
There are two active players that have one box yet to tick. Jordan Spieth needs to win the PGA Championship to follow McIlroy into the promised land, and in 2015, it was genuinely conceivable he could’ve won all four in one season.
He won the Masters by four shots and won the US Open two months later at Chambers Bay. At the Open at St Andrews, he was one shot out of a playoff after spinning his approach to the 18th hole on Sunday into the Valley of Sin. He came second to Jason Day at the PGA one month later.
Spieth did win The Open at Royal Birkdale in 2017, but he is a PGA shy of the grand slam. But since coming second at Whistling Straits in 2015, the best he has managed at the PGA is one top 10, and he is certainly not the dominant player he once was.
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The lingering grand slam story has never followed Spieth around like it did McIlroy. The memories of McIlroy’s collapse at Augusta in 2011, plus his subsequent major disappointments, meant expectation reached boiling point every time McIlroy returned to the Masters.
The other active player who could win the major grand slam is Phil Mickelson. As the years tick over for this 50-plus-year-old, it becomes more unlikely, but in 2021, he became the game’s oldest major winner at 50 by winning the PGA Championship.
With such immense talent and a career where he has been one of the most exhilarating figures in all of sport, you wouldn’t rule out Mickelson winning the US Open – the last piece of his puzzle. He also came tied for second at the Masters two years ago, aged 52. He has finished runner-up six times at the US Open, which is staggering.
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His first major came at the 2004 Masters, and he owns three Green Jackets now. He won the PGA Championship in 2005 and, rather significantly, the Open Championship at Muirfield in 2013. He and his long-time caddie Jim ‘Bones’ McKay shared an emotional embrace that time – somewhat a vindication of his quality after winning an event that challenges every facet of a player’s game.
In the women’s game, it becomes a little confusing. Seven players have won a grand slam by winning four different majors, but what is classed as a major has changed from era to era. Pat Bradley, Juli Inkster, Inbee Park, Annika Sorenstam, Louise Suggs, Karrie Webb and Mickey Wright make up this group.
Webb is in a unique club of her own, having won five different tournaments classed as majors.
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