WE’RE already halfway through the 2025 major championship season, and, as last year, we’re shock-free because the cream has risen to the top.
At Augusta National, Rory McIlroy completed his career Grand Slam before Scottie Scheffler made it three major wins in 14 starts at the PGA Championship. Last year, remember, Xander Schauffele claimed both the PGA Championship and the Open, while Bryson DeChambeau’s second US Open triumph came in the middle of a run of five consecutive top-six finishes in the American majors. Let’s not forget either that Jon Rahm won a second major just a touch over two years ago and that Brooks Koepka recorded his fifth major victory soon after.
That’s a high-quality set of recent winners (even if Koepka has failed to finish top 10 since his success at Oak Hill in 2023) and as the PGA Tour ventures to the golfing home of the great Jack Nicklaus (Muirfield Village for the Memorial Tournament) it’s worth pondering how the records of that modern half-dozen measures up to the six golfers who have won the most major championships of them all.
There’s an inherent difficulty in creating the numbers that follow. Namely, the stats of the great champions include the years after their winning sweet spots (when, for the most part, they were in their golfing dotage). To offset this problem, these records only include results up to the age of 50, starting off with …
THE LEGENDS
JACK NICKLAUS – 120 starts
18 wins (15%) – 46 top three finishes (38%) – 71 top 10s (59%)
TIGER WOODS – 95 starts
15 wins (16%) – 26 top three finishes (27%) – 41 top 10s (43%)
WALTER HAGEN – 57 starts
11 wins (19%) – 18 top three finishes (32%) – 33 top 10s (58%)
BEN HOGAN – 50 starts
9 wins (18%) – 17 top three finishes (34%) – 37 top 10s (74%)
GARY PLAYER – 110 starts
9 wins (8%) – 18 top three finishes (16%) – 44 top 10s (40%)
TOM WATSON – 105 starts
8 wins (8%) – 18 top three finishes (17%) – 44 top 10s (42%)
The key takeaways here are that the top quartet are clear of Player and Watson. Beyond that, the sheer weight of top three finishes from Jack Nicklaus is astounding, the quality of Hagen is probably overlooked, and the top 10 consistency of Hogan is simply mind-blowing.
THE MODERN STARS
RORY MCILROY – 65 starts
5 wins (8%) – 13 top three finishes (20%) – 32 top 10s (49%)
BROOKS KOEPKA – 44 starts
5 wins (11%) – 9 top three finishes (20%) – 18 top 10s (41%)
SCOTTIE SCHEFFLER – 23 starts
3 wins (13%) – 6 top three finishes (26%) – 14 top 10s (61%)
XANDER SCHAUFFELE – 32 starts
2 wins (6%) – 6 top three finishes (19%) – 16 top 10s (50%)
BRYSON DECHAMBEAU – 34 starts
2 wins (6%) – 4 top three finishes (12%) – 9 top 10s (26%)
JON RAHM – 34 starts
2 wins (6%) – 5 top three finishes (15%) – 14 top 10s (41%)
These numbers put McIlroy and Koepka on their way to sitting level with Player and Watson, but that presupposes that they maintain their current form until they hit 50. They also highlight Schauffele’s exceptional capacity to feature on the first page of leaderboards.
And then there is Scheffler, whose record is currently superior to his peers, and yet he would need to win more and finish top three more often to compare with the greats (he’d also need to maintain it for the next 22 years). Scheffler is very good. Nicklaus, Woods, Hagen, and Hogan were very, very, very good.
Enough of Nicklaus’ past, however. What of his present, and the tournament he hosts this week? Over the years he has relentlessly tweaked the course at Muirfield Village in his quest to keep it relevant. It is long (over 7,500 yards), the rough is thick, the bunkers deep, and the greens rapid. Drives need to avoid the worst of the long grass, approaches need to be accurate, touch on and around the green must be sure.
Sepp Straka
DP World Tour action returns to Austria this week with the Austrian Alpine Open in Salzburg, but the nation’s top golfer will not be in attendance. Instead, he’ll be looking for win number three for the season on the PGA Tour. Straka has form on Nicklaus designs, too. He won at the grandly titled Nicklaus Club at Lions Gate on the Korn Ferry Tour; his first PGA Tour win came at PGA National, which Nicklaus renovated; and he was second with 18 holes to play at Muirfield Village last year before finishing fifth. His excellent golf in 2025 has been built on quality approach play. Maintaining that would serve him well this week.
Matt Fitzpatrick
The Englishman is a winner at Harbour Town, which was Nicklaus’ very first design, but it’s debatable how much it conforms to his principles because Pete Dye was the main man on the project. But he’s also impressed at Muirfield Village finishing third in 2020, ninth in 2023 and fifth last year. He revealed after contending last time out in the PGA Championship that his game had started to turn around at Harbour Town in April. He can maintain that upturn this week.
Ryan Gerard
The American opened his first crack at the PGA Tour, in 2023, with fourth place at PGA National, and later that year he started the Barracuda Championship with two rounds of 64 to lead on the Nicklaus-designed Tahoe Mountain before finishing fifth. He’s been more consistent this year and spent time in the top 20 at both PGA National and Harbour Town. He was also a fine eighth in the PGA Championship when his approach work was dialled in.
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