Scottie Scheffler’s PGA Championship win continues incredible run of great major champions with Sunday drama

Scottie Scheffler became a three-time major champion on Sunday as the world’s No. 1 player cruised to a five-shot victory at the 2025 PGA Championship. Even though it wound up being a runaway win for the Texan, he was forced to fight his way through a final round filled with plenty of dramatics.

Scheffler found himself tied with Jon Rahm as he made the turn, and while Rahm eventually hit the eject button on the Green Mile going bogey-double-double to fall into a tie for eighth, there were a couple edge-of-your-seat hours of golf at Quail Hollow in Charlotte.

Sunday was the continuation of one of the best runs of major championship golf in recent memory. Each of the last six majors have been won by the game’s top stars, including Scheffler (2024 Masters, 2025 PGA Championship), Xander Schauffele (2024 PGA Championship, 2024 Open), Bryson DeChambeau (2024 U.S. Open) and Rory McIlroy (2025 Masters).

It’s not just that stars are winning, though, it’s that they are constantly having to beat other top players on the weekend.

Scheffler battled Rahm and DeChambeau down the stretch. Each either shared or outright held the lead at various points on the weekend before Scheffler took control on the back nine Sunday. At the 2025 Masters, McIlroy and DeChambeau traded blows before McIlroy’s attention shifted to Justin Rose (and Ludvig Åberg) down the stretch in a playoff victory.

Scheffler was in the mix on Saturday at the 2024 Open before Schauffele leapt Billy Horschel and outlasted Rose for the Claret Jug, two months after beating out DeChambeau, Viktor Hovland and Collin Morikawa in a shootout at the PGA Championship. Scheffler’s Masters win saw him pull away from Åberg and Morikawa on Sunday to win by four, and the U.S. Open battle that saw DeChambeau beat McIlroy was the stuff of legends. 

It’s rare to have a run of majors that produce this caliber of winners and this level of drama. Even the blowouts (both by Scheffler) haven’t actually been decided until late in the final round, and we’ve had three legitimately thrilling finishes in the last six majors. 

Major winners from 2017 to 2025

• Brooks Koepka (5)
• Scottie Scheffler (3)
• Xander Schauffele (2)
• Bryson DeChambeau (2)
• Jon Rahm (2)
• Justin Thomas (2)
• Collin Morikawa (2)
• Rory McIlroy
• Tiger Woods
• Jordan Spieth
• Hideki Matsuyama
• Dustin Johnson
• Sergio Garcia
• Cameron Smith
• Patrick Reed
• Shane Lowry
• Wyndham Clark
• Gary Woodland
• Matt Fitzpatrick
• Brian Harman
• Francesco Molinari

Once a year, at least, it seemed like there would be one major won by a surprising competitor. While that can be fun, fans want to see the best players battling at the game’s biggest stages, and given those best players have been somewhat divided between the PGA Tour and LIV Golf, those opportunities are fewer and further between than ever before.

While there are some outliers at the bottom of the above list, 15 of the last 21 major winners have been top 10 players in the world for solid stretches of their careers. That is a remarkable run of major champions, and it seems to only be getting better.

2025 PGA Championship prize money, purse: Payouts for winner Scottie Scheffler, golfers from $19 million pool

Robby Kalland

It is a testament to the strength and depth at the top of the golf world right now that we keep getting this quality at the top of major leaderboards. As anyone who grew up in the Tiger Woods era knows, it’s impossible for the best players to show up with their A-game at every major. That has typically opened the door for some shocking winners, but this current crop of stars seems to balance each other out in an incredible way. 

While the game lacks a singular, dominant figure like Tiger, it has made up for that in the aggregate with a growing pool of stars that are all capable of winning multiple major titles behind what has become a trio of consistent, leading figures in Scheffler, McIlroy and DeChambeau. No surprise they are, respectively, the three favorites to win the 2025 U.S. Open, per DraftKings, with Scheffler leading the charge at 4-1.

Having that depth at the top means we are far more likely to get a great leaderboard by the end of four rounds, and we saw that play out in Charlotte as Scheffler, Rahm and DeChambeau carried the torch while McIlroy, Thomas, Åberg, Morikawa and Schauffele all struggled to be a factor. 

Perhaps we are due for the next Cinderella story like a Todd Hamilton, Y.E. Yang or Danny Willett, but the always-difficult task of becoming a surprise major winner is getting even tougher. And that’s ultimately a great thing for the game.