Collecting his first Claret Jug in style while claiming the third leg of the career grand slam, Scottie Scheffler ran away with the 2025 Open Championship at Royal Portrush on Sunday, ending the tournament 17 under and four shots clear of the field after posting a final-round 68. In doing so, Scheffler, 29, joined a short list of all-time legends — including Gary Player, Jack Nicklaus and Tiger Woods — to win The Open, the Masters and the PGA Championship all before age 30.
The No. 1 player in the world became just the second man in history to win The Open from that position, joining Woods, who accomplished the feat three times. And just like Tiger, the span between Scheffler’s first and fourth major lasted exactly 1,197 days. Scheffler once again proved there is no one on the planet that can hang with him when he’s at his best, particularly when he’s putting well. He did exactly that over the last 72 holes, leading the field in strokes gained putting on this links course.
Scheffler’s contemporaries at the top of the sport all admitted this week that he exists alone at the top of the golf world. Rory McIlroy, who grew up just over an hour away from Portrush in Northern Ireland, called him “inevitable” on Saturday. Bryson DeChambeau noted after his final round that Scheffler is in a “league of his own.”
With a Claret Jug now joining two green jackets, a Wanamaker Trophy and an Olympic gold medal on his mantle, Scheffler took another huge step toward being considered an all-time great. He’s the first man to win his first four majors by three or more strokes in 153 years (John Henry Taylor, 1871), per Justin Ray.
With four major wins in his bag, Scheffler is now tied for 22nd all-time such victories, one shy of the active lead of five major titles shared by McIlroy and Brooks Koepka. He’s the youngest player to win four since McIlroy, who did so at age 25.
A signature of Scheffler’s continued success is his ability to close out tournaments while holding 54-hole leads. Sunday marked the 10th straight event Scheffler has won while entering as the Sunday’ leader, the longest streak on the PGA Tour since Woods did so an outrageous 37 straight times.
Scheffler’s victory marks the second straight year in which the same player has won The Open and the PGA Championship (Xander Schaufele); the feat has now happened eight times in history, twice by Woods.
The final achievement left for Scheffler, who has already won the Tour Championship and two Players Championships, is to claim the U.S. Open. Doing so would clinch his all-time great status as Scheffler would become the seventh man in history to claim all four majors after McIlroy did so by winning the Masters this April.
Whereas McIlroy struggled with the pressure of join that elusive group — placing an immense amount of importance on winning a green jacket and joining the game’s legends — Scheffler seems uniquely equipped to handle the mental challenge of that pursuit. He made headlines this week by claiming he simultaneously has an intense desire to win but an inability to be fulfilled by actually winning tournaments.
With the benefit of hindsight following this dominant performance, his comments clearly pointed to an innate and unique ability that Scheffler possesses when it comes to compartmentalization.
On the course, Scheffler is an all-time competitor; off of it, he’s an all-time family man. Few can flip that switch the way Scheffler has proven able time and again, yet it seems to baffle even him how exactly that dichotomy works. His final-round performance in Portrush was a masterclass.
It took two swings on Sunday for Scheffler to slam the door shut on the rest of the field. His approach shot on No. 1 landed just short and right of the flag, bounding up to the top of the slope and rolling to 16 inches from the cup — the closest approach of anyone all week. That birdie was an early statement, but it was a pair of gritty par saves on the 6th and 7th that showed that Scheffler didn’t just want to win, he wanted to dominate the field.
Holding a 7-shot lead after three early birdies, Scheffler would’ve been forgiven for a mid-round lapse. Wayward tee shots on the par 3 and par 5, respectively, put him behind the 8-ball, but he showed a Tiger-like resolve to never yield a shot to the field. On both holes, he had to grind his way to create even an outside look at par, but on both holes, he poured in putts from just over 15 feet to maintain a bogey-free card and further demoralize those chasing him.
Scheffler gave two back with a double bogey on the 8th after clipping the lip of the bunker, but he bounced back as he so often does with birdies on Nos. 9 and 12 to get back to 17 under and restore order at the top of the leaderboard.
From that point, the coronation walk through Northern Ireland began.
McIlroy gave the home crowd a few more chances to roar as he made his way around Royal Portrush, but a double bogey on the 10th ended any hopes of a stunning comeback. Harris English and Chris Gotterup made valiant efforts to finish second and third, respectively, battling in the third-to-last group — a pairing that could show up at Bethpage Black in September for the United States Ryder Cup team. Wyndham Clark charged from way back into the top 5 at 11 under thanks to a 65. Haotong Li hung around as best he could in the final pairing, producing his second-best major finish of his career.
Scheffler ensured no one could ever truly believe they had a chance. It may not fulfill him in the long-term, but these four rounds left no doubt about his bonafides as a competitor on the course.
His performance felt like a statement and a reminder: whatever vulnerability he shows the media on Tuesdays, once a golf tournament starts, there is nothing he wants more than to win. For all the comparisons made to Woods regarding the physical form of his game, the mental side might be closer to Tiger than anything else. It shows up time and again on the course, but given Woods’ greatness this century, there’s no better way to describe what Scheffler did to the field at Royal Portrush than “Tiger-like.”
As Scheffler heads into the 2026 major championship season — coming off the first two-major season of his career — there are no more questions about where he stands among his contemporaries. His pursuit shifts fully to leaving no doubt that he’s among the game’s all-time legends.
