Grand Slam (golf)


In golf, winning all of the sport's major championships in the same calendar year constitutes the Grand Slam. The modern Grand Slam would mean winning The Open Championship, U.S. Open, PGA Championship and Masters Tournament in the same year. Before the rise of professional tournament golf, the Grand Slam was achieved in 1930 when Bobby Jones won the four major championships of that era: The Amateur Championship, The Open Championship, the United States Open, and the United States Amateur.
Variations include a Career Grand Slam, which involves winning all of the major tournaments within a player's career. Six golfers have accomplished this: Gene Sarazen, Ben Hogan, Gary Player, Jack Nicklaus, Tiger Woods, and Rory McIlroy. Holding all four major titles at the same time has been done only once, by Woods in 2000–2001, and has become known as the Tiger Slam. A pre-Masters era professional career Grand Slam was achieved by Tommy Armour and Walter Hagen, in winning The Open, U.S. Open and PGA along with the next three biggest tournaments of the time.

Men's golf

The Grand Slam in men's golf is an unofficial term for winning all four major championships in the same year.
In the modern era, the Grand Slam requires victories in four tournaments in a single calendar year :
  1. Masters Tournament, held the week ending on the 2nd Sunday in April – hosted as an invitational by and played at Augusta National Golf Club
  2. PGA Championship, held the week ending on the 3rd Sunday in May, one week before Memorial Day weekend – hosted by the PGA of America and played at various locations in the United States. Prior to 2019, it was held in mid-August, three weeks before Labor Day weekend.
  3. U.S. Open, held the week ending on the 3rd Sunday or Father's Day in June – hosted by the USGA and played at various locations in the United States.
  4. The Open Championship, held the week containing the 3rd Friday in July – hosted by The R&A and always played on a links course at one of several predetermined locations in the United Kingdom on a rota basis.
Prior to the creation of the Masters Tournament, the national amateur championships of the U.S. and the UK were considered major championships. During that earlier era, the Grand Slam comprised consecutive victories at the U.S. Amateur, The Amateur Championship along with the U.S. Open and the Open Championship.
The term Grand Slam was first applied to Bobby Jones' achievement of winning the four major golf events of 1930 open to amateurs: The Open Championship, the U.S. Open, the U.S. Amateur, and the British Amateur. When Jones won all four, the sports world searched for ways to capture the magnitude of his accomplishment. Up to that time, there was no term for such a feat because no one had thought it possible. The Atlanta Journals O. B. Keeler dubbed it the "Grand Slam," borrowing a bridge term. George Trevor of the New York Sun wrote that Jones had "stormed the impregnable quadrilateral of golf." Keeler would later write the words that would forever be linked to one of the greatest individual accomplishments in the history of sports:

This victory, the fourth major title in the same season and in the space of four months, had now and for all time entrenched Bobby Jones safely within the 'Impregnable Quadrilateral of Golf,' that granite fortress that he alone could take by escalade, and that others may attack in vain, forever.

During this era, a professional Grand Slam was also talked about, comprising the two open major championships, along with the PGA Championship and the three next biggest tournaments: the Canadian Open, Western Open and Metropolitan Open. Completing this professional grand slam during their career was achieved by Tommy Armour and Walter Hagen, who both completed it in 1931.
The modern definition of four majors open to pros and amateurs could not be applied until at least 1934, when the Masters was founded, and still carried little weight in 1953 when Ben Hogan won the Masters, U.S. Open, and Open Championship. That year, it was impossible to win all four as the PGA Championship preceded and overlapped with the Open Championship; the PGA's 36-hole match play semifinals and finals near Detroit were the same days as the mandatory 36-hole qualifier at Carnoustie in Scotland for the Open Championship; the only way to compete in both events was to lose an early match at the PGA. Hogan is the only player to have won the Masters, U.S. Open, and Open Championship in the same calendar year.
In 1960, Arnold Palmer won the Masters in April and U.S. Open in June. According to his autobiography, A Golfer's Life, he and his friend Bob Drum, while on the trans-Atlantic flight to The Open Championship at St Andrews, came up with the idea that adding it and the PGA Championship titles that July would constitute a modern Grand Slam. Drum spread the notion among the gathered media and it caught on. However, a newspaper article on 12 April 1960 titled "Biggest Grand Slam May Be Palmer Goal" stated "Arnold Palmer, the Midas of the fairways, has charted a course which could carry him to the biggest grand slam in golf since Bobby Jones' feat in 1930. The Pennsylvania strongman with golfdom's golden touch passed his first landmark when he won the 24th Masters tournament yesterday with a pulsating stretch drive. Three more big ones remain- the U.S. Open in Denver June 16–18, the 100th anniversary British Open at historic St. Andrews July 4–9 and the PGA championship in Akron, Ohio, July 28–31. If the 29-year-old Palmer can add those three jewels to his Masters crown the performance will rank on a par with Jones' grand slam year." Two years earlier, the PGA had changed to stroke play, and it started to be held two weeks after the Open Championship in 1960. Scheduling problems continued through the 1960s as the last two majors were held in successive weeks in July on five occasions. The PGA was played in August in 1965 but returned to July for the next three. With the formation of the Tournament Players Division in late 1968, now the PGA Tour, the PGA Championship moved to August in 1969 and, except for the 1971 edition, held in late February to avoid the summer heat of Florida, continued to be held during that month until 2018. From 2019 it is held in May.
Tiger Woods came closest to winning a modern Grand Slam by holding all four major titles at the same time. He won all four major championships consecutively – the U.S. Open, Open Championship, and PGA Championship in 2000, and the 2001 Masters – but not in the same calendar year. This has been called the Tiger Slam. In fact, even before Woods accomplished this, there was much debate over the definition of "Grand Slam." Fred Couples said, "I don't know how I can put it more simply... if he wins all four, it's a Slam."
Only six golfers have won all four of golf's modern majors at any time during their careers, an achievement which is often referred to as a Career Grand Slam: Gene Sarazen, Ben Hogan, Gary Player, Jack Nicklaus, Tiger Woods, and Rory McIlroy. Woods and Nicklaus have won each of the four majors at least three times.
The term also refers to a former tour tournament, the PGA Grand Slam of Golf, an annual off-season tournament, that was cancelled after the 2014 tournament, contested by the winners of the four major championships.

Career Grand Slam

Original Grand Slam

Early era professional Grand Slam

Years in bold denotes win that completed the career Grand Slam.
PlayerMajor
titles		The OpenU.S. OpenPGAWestern OpenCanadian OpenMetropolitan Open

Modern era Grand Slam

Years in bold denotes win that completed the career Grand Slam. Number denotes which of multiple Grand slams was completed by winning this event.
PlayerMajor
titles		Career
Grand
Slams		MastersU.S. OpenThe OpenPGAYears to complete
1st Grand Slam
Players in search of the modern era career Grand Slam
Several players in the modern era have been one major championship short of completing the career grand slam, having never won :
Tommy Armour, Jim Barnes and Walter Hagen also won three of the four but were in the twilight of their careers when the Masters Tournament was founded and would not have been expected to win at that time.

Women's golf

Women's golf also has a set of majors. No woman has completed a calendar year four-major Grand Slam, but Babe Zaharias won all three majors contested in 1950 and Sandra Haynie won both majors in 1974.
Seven women have completed the Career Grand Slam by winning four different majors. There are variations in the set of four tournaments involved as the players played in different eras, and the women's tournaments defined as "majors" have varied considerably over time in a way that has not been paralleled in the men's game. The seven are Pat Bradley, Juli Inkster, Inbee Park, Annika Sörenstam, Louise Suggs, Karrie Webb, and Mickey Wright. Webb is separately recognized by the LPGA as its only "Super Career Grand Slam" winner, for she is the only one of the group to have won five different tournaments recognized as majors.
Although other women's tours, notably the Ladies European Tour and the LPGA of Japan Tour, recognize a different set of "majors", the U.S. LPGA is so dominant in global women's golf that the phrase "women's majors", without further qualification, is almost universally considered as a reference to the U.S. LPGA majors.
The five current major championships are:
  1. April—The Chevron Championship —Founded by Dinah Shore, it is most remembered for the winners taking a "lake jump" into the water surrounding the 18th green, also called the "Green Jacket of the LPGA" in reference to the ceremony held at the Masters Tournament. Similar to the Masters, it is held at the same venue every year. Originally it was hosted by Mission Hills Country Club in Rancho Mirage, CA, from 1983 to 2022, and presently at The Club at Carlton Woods in The Woodlands, Texas since 2023.
  2. June—The U.S. Women's Open —Hosted by the USGA, it is held at various golf courses around the nation. It is considered by some to be the biggest major in the LPGA circuit, despite the fact it is not sanctioned by the Ladies European Tour. It is held at various courses throughout the United States.
  3. June—The KPMG Women's PGA Championship —hosted by the PGA of America since 2015 and played at various locations in the USA.
  4. July—The Evian Championship —an event held in France that was historically known as the Evian Masters and became the LPGA's fifth major championship in 2013. The tournament has been an LET major since its inception in 1994, and was sanctioned as a regular LPGA tour event from 2000 to 2012. Before 2019, it had been held in September.
  5. August—The AIG Women's Open —It is hosted by The R&A, which absorbed the event's former operator, the Ladies' Golf Union, in late 2016. Unlike the men's Open Championship, neither the LGU nor The R&A has adopted a links-only course policy, although the event has most commonly been held on links courses in the 21st century. 2007 marked the first time it was held at what is considered by many to be the greatest golf course in the world, and certainly the most historic, the Old Course at St Andrews. In 2009, it was moved to a date three weeks after the U.S. Women's Open. The 2012 edition was held in September to avoid conflict with the 2012 Summer Olympics in London; in 2013, it returned to its then-current July/August date; and in 2019, it was fixed to be the week after The Evian Championship. Before 2013, this was the only championship sanctioned as a major by both the LPGA and the LET.