The 2025 Major Season has been more historic than most.
Admittedly, most of that history was created by early April, when Rory McIlroy stuttered spectacularly towards his elusive Grand Slam triumph at Augusta National. But the other Majors provided notable storylines of their own: Scottie Scheffler moved to within three quarters of completing his own Grand Slam with dominant wins at the PGA and Open Championships, while JJ Spaun bounced back from heartbreak at the Player’s Championship to capture his maiden US Open title at Oakmont. Europe’s triumph at Bethpage Black – their first away Ryder Cup win in 13 years – bookended a historic Major season.
For most golf fans – particularly those across the pond, where the Race to Dubai on the DP World Tour tends to fly under the radar – attention now turns to the 2026 season. Of the events taking place next year, the Majors are – inevitably – the most highly anticipated. As ever, golf fans can expect a trip to golfing paradise for the Master’s, the toughest test of golf at the US Open, and a test on British Links at the Open Championship. They can also look forward to the PGA Championship.
There are many differing opinions on the relative prestige of each of the Major Championships. Gary Player – the third man to complete the Grand Slam over 60 years ago – likes to rank the Majors on seniority, which, somewhat controversially, places the Master’s Tournament in last place. This is most definitely an isolated opinion; social media is awash with different takes on how the Masters, the Open and the US Open should be ranked in the top three. The PGA Championship finds itself almost unanimously in 4th place.
The most significant reason for this is the PGA Championship’s current lack of identity. 10 of the last 14 venues to host a PGA Championship have also previously hosted a US Open; PGA Championships’ course setups often resemble that of a US Open, with long rough and firm greens; and both tournaments take place exclusively in the United States, since they are both hosted by American golfing associations (the PGA of America and the USGA, respectively). As a result, the PGA Championship often feels like a second US Open – with the US Open so firmly established as golf’s ultimate test that few would ever claim the reverse.
The PGA Championship hasn’t always been short on identity. From 1916 – 1957, this tournament stood apart as the only Major Championship contested in a matchplay format. Returning to this format would again provide the PGA Championship with a unique edge. Unfortunately, while there is a lot of support for more matchplay events among hardcore golfing fans, this would not be the right way forward. Matchplay events suffer from an absence of multiple widely recognized contenders in the latter stages of the tournament. To illustrate this simply, a match play final involves just two players, whereas the final round of a stroke play event typically features half the field. For television audiences, this means longer gaps between shots, with fewer opportunities to cut to other players – ultimately resulting in less engaging coverage. It was precisely this feature of match play that contributed to the declining viewership figures and, in turn, the discontinuation of the WGC Dell Technologies Match Play since 2024. Clearly, reverting to match play is not the solution to the PGA Championship’s current struggle for identity.
More recently, the PGA Championship carried the slogans of ‘Glory’s Last Shot’ and ‘The Season’s Final Major’ – a reference to its former status as the final Major Championship of the year. It is also considered to host the strongest field in golf: for example, the 2025 PGA Championship became the first tournament to record a Strength of Field (SoF) rating above 500 points since the introduction of the new OWGR system around three years ago. Yet, neither of these features offer a truly distinctive selling point for the PGA Championship. The reshuffling of the golfing calendar has positioned it as the season’s second Major since 2019, and before the emergence of LIV Golf, the Player’s Championship was widely seen as the event with the strongest field in the game.
So how does one fix the PGA Championship? The easiest way to provide the PGA Championship with a credible, unique identity is to turn it into the only Major Championship played outside the US and UK. Turn it into the ‘International Major’. Specifically, I propose that these majors should be hosted in countries with a rich yet underrepresented golfing heritage. Australia, with its legendary Sandbelt courses; New Zealand, with some of the most visually striking golfing landscapes in the world; and South Africa, with its safari-adjacent terrain and rugged natural settings, all possess exceptional golfing traditions that remain largely absent from mainstream tours. The argument is not that majors should be taken to countries where golf is relatively unpopular simply to “grow the game.” Such growth is better achieved through the expansion of regular tour events, as demonstrated by the DP World Tour’s successful staging of the Indian Open. Instead, the rationale is that the PGA Championship should be hosted in countries that already offer world-class golfing environments worthy of the sport’s most prestigious events.
Such a move would provide multiple key benefits. First, players and fans earn the opportunity to experience different styles of golf courses than what they see on the regular tour. Second, many of the best courses in the world outside of the US and UK – whose worldwide recognition stems mostly from appearances in golfing magazines – get to host Championships befitting of their stature. Third, the PGA Championship would gain a unique dynamism from year-to-year, with the tournament potentially hosted in different countries in each edition, a stark contrast to other three Majors on the calendar. Fourth, it will help inspire a more international golfing fanbase, which – in the long-run – could result in more diverse fields in future Championships. It isn’t a coincidence that the presently American-dominated circuit has resulted in American-dominated fields. An internationalisation of the PGA Championship would be a first step in overcoming such field homogeneity.
A seismic change such as this can’t, however, be made in isolation. The PGA Championship is currently played in May between the Master’s and the US Open. Placing an International Major at such a time would prove to be a logistical nightmare. To accommodate for the internationalisation of the PGA Championship, I recommend that it be moved to December/January – much like the Australian Open in Tennis. This would also have the added benefit of spacing out the Major calendar, a change necessary to preserve the sense of anticipation that should build ahead of each of the four Majors. Further – and more significantly – it’d require the PGA of America to embrace the possibility of hosting its Championship outside its home country. This may mean that certain traditions of the PGA Championship at present – such as the inclusion of 20 PGA Professionals – might have to be forgone. Alternatively, a new governing body would need to be established to assume responsibility for this Major, a process for which there is little precedent.
The PGA Championship, in its current form, carries enough prestige to attract the strongest fields in golf and to deliver tournaments rich in tension and drama. However, the stature of a Major Championship depends not only on how it is regarded ex post, but also on the anticipation it generates ex ante. The issues raised in this article – about the tournament’s lack of identity – are critical in influencing the latter. Too often, the success of the event itself allows these concerns to be overlooked. It is my hope that this article encourages more serious reflection on them.