Following the AIG Women’s Open that finished on Sunday, golf’s ‘major season’ is over. Which really is a shame, because it means we will not have any until the second week of April next year, when the Masters tee off.
The men’s majors – the Masters, the PGA Championship, the US Open and the Open Championship – are played between the second week of April and the third week of July. That’s everything inside 15 weeks.
The women’s majors – the Chevron Championship, US Women’s Open presented by Ally, KPMG Women’s PGA Championship, Amundi Evian Championship and the AIG Women’s Open – are played between the fourth week of April and the first week of August. Five championships inside 15 weeks.
Because so many factors go into it, scheduling events is one of the biggest headaches for most Tours. ‘And yet, there needs to be a rethink on it. Personally, I liked the time when the PGA Championship was played in the third week of August.
There are several arguments for expanding the major season. You want to spread the goodies around, and these are nine tournaments that most fans care about. An easy way out would be to have one of the men’s majors in overseas territory (say, Australia in November), but American organisations own three US-based majors. They are not going to take it around the globe and lose their core market.
Let’s keep the topic for a later date, because I wanted this column to find out the Player of the Major Championships in 2026.
It’s difficult to compare the men’s and women’s season, especially because there are five women’s majors. Even though the prize money has gone up significantly, these five tournaments offer the women players a total of $53.6 million. The men’s major purse in 2026 was 55.3 per cent more at $83.25 million.
World No2 Rory McIlroy made the most money in the majors – a total of $5.33 million – followed by Wyndham Clark’s $4.75 million.
The player with the third-best earnings this season was Nelly Korda, at $4.59 million. That was boosted by her wins in the first two majors of the season. Significantly, Korda made more money than the men’s world No1, Scottie Scheffler ($4.54 million).
Another LPGA player who made it to the top-10 list is the other two-time major champion, Korea’s Haeran Ryu ($3.72mn).
Those multiple wins make them more worthy contenders for Major Player of the Year. But I also took the liberty of increasing their earnings by 55.31 per cent (the difference between the prize purses), which would make them the top-two players – Korda at $7.13 million and Ryu at $5.77 million.
My vote for the Major Player of the Year, despite the numbers favouring Korda, would be Ryu.
The South Korean won back-to-back titles (KPMG Women’s PGA and the Amundi Evian Championship), and was leading well into the third round of the AIG Women’s Open.
The determining factor for me is that Ryu actually played just four of the five events, having missed the US Women’s Open because she needed to go back to South Korea and undergo a procedure. So, despite starting the season with an injury, she had the year she had. On the other hand, the one missed cut (Amundi Evian) goes against Korda.
The best PGA Tour week of the year
This week on the PGA Tour is the Wyndham Championship, the last counting event of the season before the FedEx Cup Playoff events starts.
It is the only event that has an Indian player on its Roll of Honour – Arjun Atwal in 2010. And then we also had Aaron Rai join that list in 2024.
But apart from the sentimental reasons, I love the fact that this is probably the only week when the top of the leaderboard is as important as the battle for every other place for several players, who are around the 70th position in the FedEx Cup standings.
Those who finish inside the top-100 at the end of The RSM Classic in November (when the full season finishes) will have full PGA Tour status for 2027.
