Golf's Majors: Understanding the PGA Tour
How Professional Golf Is Organized
Unlike team sports, professional golf is an individual pursuit, and its top players compete week to week in tournaments around the world. In North America, the leading circuit is the PGA Tour, a series of events where players earn money and ranking points based on their finishing position. Golfers are not employees of a single team; they enter tournaments as individuals and keep their winnings, which makes consistency across a long season crucial.
A typical tournament is played over four days, Thursday through Sunday, with 18 holes each day for 72 holes total. After the first two rounds, a cut is made, and only the players with the best scores continue to the weekend. The golfer with the lowest total score over all four rounds wins.
The Four Majors
While golfers play dozens of tournaments a year, four events stand far above the rest. These are the majors, and winning even one can define a career. In order through the year, they are:
- The Masters - played every April at Augusta National Golf Club in Georgia, famous for its green jacket awarded to the champion.
- The PGA Championship - held in May, rotating among different courses in the United States.
- The U.S. Open - held in June, known for punishing course setups that test every part of a player's game.
- The Open Championship - often called the British Open, played in July on windswept links courses in the United Kingdom.
The 2025 majors showcased how special these events are. Rory McIlroy won the Masters in a dramatic playoff to complete the career grand slam, meaning he had won all four majors in his career. Scottie Scheffler won both the PGA Championship and the Open Championship, while J.J. Spaun claimed the U.S. Open at Oakmont with a memorable long birdie putt on the final hole.
The Career Grand Slam
Because there are four different majors, winning all four over a career is one of golf's rarest achievements, known as the career grand slam. Only a small handful of players in history have done it. McIlroy's 2025 Masters victory made him the sixth man to complete the feat, ending an eleven-year quest and underscoring just how difficult it is to win every one of these championships at least once.
The FedEx Cup and the Season
Beyond the majors, the PGA Tour season is tied together by the FedEx Cup, a season-long points competition. Players accumulate points at every tournament based on how they finish. At the end of the regular season, the top players qualify for a set of playoff events. The field narrows at each stage until a smaller group reaches the final event, the Tour Championship, where a season champion is crowned and a large bonus is awarded.
This format gives the season a clear structure and a climactic finish. A player can have a strong year without winning a major and still be rewarded for consistency by climbing the FedEx Cup standings. It also keeps late-season tournaments meaningful, since a good run can vault a golfer up the rankings.
Basic Scoring Terms
Golf scoring is based on par, the number of strokes an expert is expected to need on a hole or course. Most full courses have a par of 70 to 72. Scores are described relative to par:
- Birdie - one stroke under par on a hole.
- Eagle - two strokes under par.
- Par - the expected score.
- Bogey - one stroke over par.
Over a tournament, a player's total is shown as a number over or under par, such as five under. The lower the number, the better, which is the opposite of most sports where a higher score wins. In a rare tie for the lead after 72 holes, tournaments settle the outcome with a playoff, sometimes sudden death, where the first player to win a hole takes the title.
Why Golf Rewards Patience
Golf is a game of fine margins played against the course and the field rather than a single opponent. A tournament can turn on one errant shot or one clutch putt, and the mental discipline required over four long days is part of what makes it compelling. For newcomers, focusing on the four majors and the FedEx Cup finale is the easiest way to follow the biggest moments of the professional golf season.
