Scottie Scheffler’s dominance over the golf world continued Sunday at Royal Portrush because the world No. 1 won his fourth career major and first Open Championship with a four-shot victory in Northern Eire. With the win, Scheffler is now a U.S. Open title away from changing into the seventh participant to finish the career grand slam, becoming a member of Rory McIlroy, Tiger Woods, Jack Nicklaus, Gary Participant, Ben Hogan and Gene Sarazen.
It famously took McIlroy 11 years to finish his grand slam, which he lastly achieved this April with an exciting Masters win. McIlroy’s pursuit of a inexperienced jacket grew to become probably the most agonizing chase to look at in golf during the last decade, and demons had been most actually exorcised as soon as that playoff putt fell at Augusta Nationwide.
Scheffler will intention to wrap his pursuit a lot faster, and he appears to be well-equipped to handle the pressure that comes with chasing historical past. His first probability on the grand slam will come at Shinnecock Hills subsequent June when the U.S. Open returns to the long-lasting Lengthy Island course for the primary time since Brooks Koepka gained there in 2018.
Scheffler is at present the favourite (+320) to win the 2026 U.S. Open trophy and full the grand slam, per DraftKings Sportsbook. And for these searching for a cosmic signal that Scottie will certainly make historical past that week, the Sunday of subsequent yr’s U.S. Open ultimate spherical occurs to be Scheffler’s thirtieth birthday: June 21, 2026.
A win there would additional push Scheffler up the checklist of all-time greats. He’s already knocking on the door of the all-time prime 10, although he wants just a few extra main titles to get there. Becoming a member of the profession grand slam membership — significantly doing so on the day he turns 30 — is a quick observe to changing into a golflegend.
The grand slam proves a participant’s bonafides as a golfer able to conquering each type of check. Successful The Open confirmed Scheffler might summon his A-game throughout the pond on the hyperlinks course, which coming into the week was the positioning of the weakest main effort of his profession. The caveat there, after all, is Scheffler nonetheless had two prime 10s at Opens and by no means missed a minimize.
Whereas he is but to win it the U.S. Open, the event has been extraordinarily good to Scheffler, who has 4 prime 10s in his final 5 begins, together with a runner-up in 2022 and a third-place end in 2023. He didn’t play within the 2018 occasion at Shinnecock, so this will probably be his first probability to play a U.S. Open at one of many rotation’s stiffest assessments, however his sport is certainly suited to the problem of the U.S. Open.
The one query is whether or not Scheffler can seize the grand slam earlier than it turns into a burden in the best way it did for McIlroy. An particularly completely satisfied thirtieth birthday celebration would merely be icing on the proverbial cake.