PGA 2026 – a look ahead
Dec 18, 2025
Golf author and pundit Michael Donaldson takes us through his picks for the PGA Tour. Who’s hot? Who’s even hotter? And what will 2026 bring, not only for the fierce rivalries within world golf, but for world golf itself?
Career Grand Slams in golf are rare birds. In nearly a century, only six golfers have accomplished the feat of winning all four majors at least once in their life: Gene Sarazen, Ben Hogan, Gary Player, Jack Nicklaus, Tiger Woods, and Rory McIlroy.
We’re now on the verge of seeing it happen twice in as many years if Scottie Scheffler can shuffle-foot it around Shinnecock Hills in the least number of strokes at the US Open in 2026.
It’s always hard to compare eras of golf, but one thing that seems to repeat across the ages are intense rivalries.
There was the early 20th century Bobby Jones and Gene Sarazen era; then pre-war we had Ben Hogan versus Sam Snead; the golden era of ‘60s and ‘70s had multiple rivalries featuring Nicklaus, Player, Arnold Palmer, Tom Watson and Lee Trevino.
The early 2000s was almost exclusively the Tiger Woods era, until the late rise of Phil Mickelson. And now we’re firmly in the McIlroy-Scheffler era.
McIlroy completed the career grand slam last year with a gut-churning, emotional riot of a playoff win over Justin Rose at The Masters. That was his fifth major, and when Scheffler joined him on that number by winning The Open Championship at Portrush in McIlroy’s native Northern Ireland, he lifted himself to within one win of his own grand slam.
Scheffler needs only the US Open to complete the set. He’s come close in the past with a second-place finish. Given this year’s US Open is at the iconic — and demanding — venue of Shinnecock Hills on Long Island, New York, it’s going to be an epic tournament.
Both McIlroy and Scheffler would dearly love to get to six majors, where Trevino, Mickelson and Nick Faldo sit. Beyond six majors they would truly be in the stratosphere of golf mythology.
Naturally, it’s not just these two that we need to keep an eye on. Bryson DeChambeau will want a better year than 2025, while born-again Brit, Tommy Fleetwood, will be looking to build on a tremendous year in which he won his first PGA title at the Tour Championship, and starred in Europe’s stunning Ryder Cup triumph.
This coming season will also be a pivotal one for world golf.
The rivalry between the PGA Tour and LIV Golf has settled down. A bit. There’s still acrimony and sniping across the trenches of social media, but we could be entering a détente period.
Rumours of a merger between the two ventures seem to have died, but LIV Golf’s decision to make their events 72 holes instead of the jaunty 54-holers we’ve seen to date, signals an intention towards a more serious platform — one in which its players can start earning Official World Golf Ranking points and get battle-hardened for the majors.
At the same time, the PGA Tour is continuing to build its own answer to the LIV model with their Signature Event programme entering its third year. These limited-field, superstar-only, high stakes events, many with no cut, are a ratings success story and could eventually lead to a tour-within-a-tour where only the best players are on show.
But what about the disrupters, who are the newcomers set for stardom in the second quarter of the 21st century?
Johnny Keefer has a lot of hype around him after finishing number one on the secondary tier Korn Ferry Tour in his debut season – a rare feat last achieved by fellow Texan Scheffler in 2019.
Keefer is not yet a Scheffler 2.0 — his game can be erratic — but he has all the skills and his meteoric rise in the world rankings will see him contend at the biggest events in his debut PGA Tour season.
Englishman Marco Penge could have been consigned to the dustbin of golf trivia a year ago. He was suspended from the sport for three months for betting infringements in 2024. He served his suspension after retaining his DP World Tour card by the skin of his teeth, making birdie on the last hole to make the cut in his last event before finishing high enough up the leaderboard to retain his playing privileges by just four places.
Penge made the most of his reprieve to win three times on the DP World Tour in 2025 and was the closest to challenging McIlroy for overall season honours. He joins the PGA Tour in 2026.
And what about that character called Tiger?
He turns 50 at the end of the year. December 30 to be exact. Will he, if fit, join the over-50s on the Champions Tour? He would be a massive drawcard despite being held together by hope and wire. He always swore he’d never play on the oldies’ circuit, and it would certainly eat into the PGA Tour’s ratings if he was playing opposite one of their events.
Well, whatever happens, Tiger will continue to be news.
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