Career Grand Slam: Who's Won All 4 Majors?
Six men have won all four professional majors — the Masters, the U.S. Open, the Open Championship, and the PGA Championship — over the course of a career. That's it. Six, out of every man who's ever picked up a club for a living. Gene Sarazen got there first in 1935, Rory McIlroy got there most recently, in a playoff at Augusta in 2025, and in between there's a list that reads like a highlight reel of the sport's biggest names: Ben Hogan, Gary Player, Jack Nicklaus, Tiger Woods.
Key Takeaways
- The career grand slam club has six members: Gene Sarazen (1935), Ben Hogan (1953), Gary Player (1965), Jack Nicklaus (1966), Tiger Woods (2000), and Rory McIlroy (2025).
- Rory McIlroy became the sixth member — and the first European — with a playoff win over Justin Rose at the 2025 Masters, ending an 11-year wait since his last major.
- Phil Mickelson is the sport's most famous near-miss: he's won the other three majors but finished runner-up at the U.S. Open a record six times, never the winner.
- Scottie Scheffler is missing only the U.S. Open. He finished tied for fourth at the 2026 U.S. Open at Shinnecock Hills, on his 30th birthday, with a real chance at the slam in the final group.
- Jordan Spieth has three legs — Masters, U.S. Open, Open Championship, all won by age 23 — and is still missing the PGA Championship, his weakest major by finish history.
Who's Actually Won the Career Grand Slam in Golf?
Six players, and I'd argue the list is more interesting for who's not on it than who is. No Arnold Palmer (never won the PGA Championship). No Sam Snead (also short on the U.S. Open, the one that got away from a lot of great players). No Seve, no Watson, no Mickelson. The bar isn't just "win four majors" — plenty of players have done that without hitting all four different trophies. It's winning each specific one, at least once, at any point in a career. Doesn't have to be in the same year, doesn't have to be in order. Just all four, eventually.
Here's the club, in the order each man completed it:
- Gene Sarazen — 1935 Masters. He holed a 4-wood from 235 yards for a double eagle on the 15th at Augusta National to force a playoff, then won it the next day. Golf writers still call it "the shot heard round the world," and it's arguably the single most famous shot in the sport's history.
- Ben Hogan — 1953 Open Championship. Hogan already had Masters, U.S. Open, and PGA Championship titles by 1953. He played the Open at Carnoustie that year — the only time he ever entered it — and won, completing the slam in his one and only try.
- Gary Player — 1965 U.S. Open. A South African who built his career flying to America for majors, Player beat Kel Nagle in a playoff at Bellerive to finish off the set. He remains the only man outside the American/British golf establishment of that era to do it.
- Jack Nicklaus — 1966 Open Championship. Nicklaus won Muirfield for his first Open title, completing the slam at 26 — younger than most people remember, given how long his career went on to run (18 majors total, still the record).
- Tiger Woods — 2000 Open Championship. Woods won at St Andrews at 24, the youngest to complete the slam, and did it in the middle of what became the "Tiger Slam" — holding all four major titles simultaneously by mid-2001.
- Rory McIlroy — 2025 Masters. After four runner-up or worse finishes at Augusta and an infamous final-round collapse in 2011, McIlroy beat Justin Rose in a playoff to finally get the green jacket, closing out the slam 11 years after his last major win.
How Close Has Phil Mickelson Come to the Career Grand Slam?
Closer than anyone who never got there. Mickelson has three Masters titles, two PGA Championships, and an Open Championship — every major except one. The U.S. Open has beaten him six separate times as a runner-up (1999, 2002, 2004, 2006, 2009, and 2013), a record nobody wants. He was 55 at Oakmont in 2025, missed the cut, and it's fair to wonder if his competitive window at that specific trophy has closed. If it has, he'll go down as the best player never to complete the slam, and the U.S. Open will be the reason why. There's something almost cruel about it — the one major built to punish the exact kind of aggressive, streaky game Mickelson always played.
Is Scottie Scheffler About to Join the Club?
He's the closest active shot outside McIlroy. Scheffler has two Masters (2022, 2024), a PGA Championship (2024), and an Open Championship (2025, a four-shot win at Royal Portrush where he led by as many as seven). The U.S. Open is the only one left, and he's not exactly a stranger to it — tied for second in 2022, solo third in 2023. At the 2026 U.S. Open at Shinnecock Hills, he played the final group on his 30th birthday with a real look at the slam and finished tied for fourth at even par. Denied, again, but not by much, and not for the first time it's felt within reach. If I had to bet on who joins McIlroy next, it's him.
What About Jordan Spieth?
Spieth is the strange case — he got three-quarters of the way there almost immediately and then stalled. Masters and U.S. Open in 2015, at 21, plus an Open Championship in 2017. That's three legs of the slam finished before his 24th birthday, a pace that had people penciling him in for the full set within a couple of years. Instead, the PGA Championship has become his personal house of horrors: runner-up at Whistling Straits in 2015, a lone top-10 in 2019, and little traction since. He teed it up at Aronimink for the 2026 PGA Championship still chasing it; Aaron Rai won that one, and Spieth wasn't in the mix at the finish. The slam is still open for him, technically — but the gap between "should complete it any year now" and "hasn't in a decade" has gotten harder to explain away.
Worth knowing the terrain here if the majors calendar is new to you — our rundown of the four majors covers what separates them, and the full list of every Masters champion has the year-by-year detail on McIlroy's win and everyone before him.
Sources
Frequently Asked Questions
- Six: Gene Sarazen, Ben Hogan, Gary Player, Jack Nicklaus, Tiger Woods, and Rory McIlroy.
- A career grand slam means winning all four majors at any point across a career, in any order. A calendar year grand slam means winning all four in the same season — something no man has ever done, though Bobby Jones won the four majors of his own amateur era in a single year, 1930, before the modern four-major format existed.
- Not in the modern professional era. The closest was Tiger Woods holding all four titles at once across 2000–2001, a run known as the "Tiger Slam" — but those wins spanned two calendar years, not one.
- The U.S. Open. He's finished runner-up there a record six times without ever winning it, the missing piece of an otherwise complete set.
- Scottie Scheffler, missing only the U.S. Open after winning the 2025 Open Championship. He finished tied for fourth at the 2026 U.S. Open at Shinnecock Hills after being in the final group. Jordan Spieth is also missing just one leg, the PGA Championship, though his recent form there has trailed off from his early-career pace.
- Yes. He won the 2025 Masters in a playoff over Justin Rose, becoming the sixth man to complete the career grand slam and the first European to do it.