What Is a Grand Slam in Golf? Career Slam, Calendar Slam & All 6 Winners

A Grand Slam in golf means winning all four major championships: the Masters Tournament, the PGA Championship, the U.S. Open, and The Open Championship. Winning each of the four at any point across a career is the Career Grand Slam. Winning all four in the same calendar year, something no male professional has ever done, is the Calendar-Year Grand Slam.

When Rory McIlroy dropped to his knees at Augusta in April 2025, it wasn’t just a Masters win. It was the completion of the golf grand slam, one of the rarest achievements in all of sport. You might have heard commentators mention a player “chasing the Grand Slam” and wondered what that actually means. The expression comes up so rarely because the feat itself almost never happens. Entire generations of elite golfers chase it without ever getting there.

The definition of the majors has shifted over decades, the competition has only gotten fiercer, and reaching that peak demands a career’s worth of near-perfect golf at the biggest moments. That’s exactly why completing it puts a player in a conversation that very few ever get to be part of.

The Golf Grand Slam: Definition and Origin

Basically in this sport, if we are talking about the Grand Slam it implies that a single player has won all the major golf championships. For the male players, the modern majors would be the Masters Tournament, PGA Championship, U.S. Open, and The Open Championship.

Moreover, the women’s game has its own version of the Grand Slam, built around five majors instead of four. More on that below.

Currently, the term which is most frequently referred to by followers when talking about a Grand Slam in golf is either a Career Grand Slam or a very rare Calendar-Year Grand Slam. The idea of the Grand Slam itself has changed from one time period to another, the difference between the modern one and the Pre-Modern Grand Slam consisting of the amateur majors being quite significant. In the pre-modern era, Bobby Jones completed his version of the Grand Slam by winning all four major championships of 1930: the U.S. Open, The Open (British Open), the U.S. Amateur, and the British Amateur.

The term itself didn’t start in golf. Sportswriter O.B. Keeler borrowed it from bridge, where a grand slam means winning every trick in a hand, to describe Bobby Jones’s run in 1930. The name stuck, and golf has used it ever since.

Types of Grand Slam in Golf

There are two recognised types of Golf Grand Slam, each with its own legacy and difficulty level.

The Career Grand Slam

The Career Grand Slam in golf is achieved when a golfer wins each of the four modern major championships at least once over the course of their entire professional playing career.

A few unique facts:

• Only six men have completed the modern Career Grand Slam in golf.
• The order of winning doesn’t matter.
• Rory McIlroy is the most recent men’s winner, completing it with his 2025 Masters victory.
• Rory didn’t stop at the slam. He went back to Augusta in 2026 and won again, becoming just the fourth golfer ever to win back to back Masters titles, joining Jack Nicklaus, Nick Faldo, and Tiger Woods in that small club.
• Nicklaus and Woods are the only two Career Grand Slam winners to also win multiple times at every one of the four venues, not just complete the set once.
• Tiger Woods is the youngest man to complete it at 24 in 2000 and is the only man to hold all four modern majors at once, famously called the Tiger Slam (2000–2001).
• Jack Nicklaus has the most majors (18) among male Career Grand Slam winners.

If you are figuring out the scoring and skills of top players, it is also a good moment to know what a scratch golfer is as most Grand Slam achievers were scratch or better in the early phases of their careers.

The Calendar-Year Grand Slam

The Calendar-Year Grand Slam in golf is by far the rarest and most valuable achievement in golf, demanding the winning of all four major championships of the modern era within a single calendar year. No male professional golfer has ever done it. Not Nicklaus. Not Woods. Not anyone.

Just to name a few facts:

• Bobby Jones (1930) is the only official calendar-year Grand Slam winner, completing the full set of his era: the U.S. Open, The Open, the U.S. Amateur, and the British Amateur, at age 28.
• Ben Hogan (1953) came closest in the modern era, winning three majors in a single season, but a scheduling conflict between the PGA Championship and The Open made a fourth attempt impossible.
• Tiger Woods held all four modern majors at once across 2000 and 2001, but because the wins spanned two seasons, it doesn’t count as a true calendar-year sweep. That run has its own name, the Tiger Slam, covered in its own section below.

The Women’s Grand Slam: LPGA’s Five Majors and Career Winners

The LPGA Tour recognizes its own Grand Slam, built around five major championships rather than four: The Chevron Championship, the Women’s PGA Championship, the U.S. Women’s Open, The Women’s Open, and The Amundi Evian Championship. Winning all five at any point across a career completes the LPGA Career Grand Slam.

Seven women have done it: Louise Suggs, Mickey Wright, Pat Bradley, Juli Inkster, Annika Sörenstam, Karrie Webb, and Inbee Park, the most recent to join the club. No woman has ever completed a true Calendar-Year Grand Slam either, sweeping all five LPGA majors in a single season. The closest anyone has come is Babe Zaharias, who won all three majors played on the LPGA calendar in 1950, back when the women’s major lineup looked very different.

That lineup is actually the tricky part. The five majors that count today haven’t always been the five that counted. Across LPGA history, eight different tournaments have held major status at one point or another, including the Titleholders Championship, the Western Open, and the du Maurier Classic. That’s why a player can complete a career Grand Slam without ever having played some of the tournaments fans assume count.

The Super Grand Slam: Karrie Webb’s Unique Achievement

There’s a rarer tier above the standard LPGA Career Grand Slam, unofficially known as the Super Grand Slam: winning five different tournaments that each held major status at the time they were won. Only one woman has ever done it. Karrie Webb won the ANA Inspiration, the U.S. Women’s Open, the Women’s British Open, the LPGA Championship, and the du Maurier Classic, making her the only player in LPGA history to pull off the five-major version.

So whenever fans ask, “Has any golfer had a Grand Slam?”, the honest answer depends on which one you mean. Only one golfer, Bobby Jones, has ever completed a true calendar-year sweep. But across both tours, thirteen players, six men and seven women, have completed a Career Grand Slam, and one of them, Karrie Webb, has done something even rarer than that.

All-Time Golf Grand Slam Winners

In the modern era, there has never been a golfer who has made a Calendar-year Grand Slam. The only one to do it is Bobby Jones when he achieved the feat in the pre-modern amateur era of 1930.

Here you can find the full rundown of both 7 male and 6 female Golf Grand Slam Winners that reached to a Career Grand Slam in golf, sorted out by the year when they achieved it.

While the Career Grand Slam represents golf’s ultimate pinnacle—achieved by just six legendary men—hundreds of players have etched their names in major championship history with at least one victory. Many others have dominated with multiple triumphs, far beyond the Slam itself. Curious about the all-time leaders? Explore Golfers with Most Major Championship Wins for the complete rankings spotlighting icons like Jack Nicklaus (18) and Tiger Woods (15).

Who Could Be Next to Complete the Career Grand Slam?

With Rory’s 2025 Masters win closing the book on a fourteen-year chase, and his back-to-back title defense in 2026 cementing his place in Augusta history, the spotlight has moved quickly. Three active players have a realistic path to joining that six-man club, and one of them is closer than anybody in the game right now.

Jordan Spieth

Spieth has the Masters (2015), U.S. Open (2015), and Open Championship (2017). All he needs is the PGA Championship. He has been knocking on that door since a runner-up finish in 2015, but his win total has been stuck at three since Royal Birkdale. At 33, he still has time, but the window is no longer as wide open as it once looked.

Scottie Scheffler

Scheffler is the most dangerous name on this list. He has the Masters (2022, 2024), PGA Championship (2025), and Open Championship (2025), meaning only the U.S. Open stands between him and the career Grand Slam. He came close to adding a third green jacket in 2026 too, finishing runner up to Rory McIlroy at Augusta after a tight final round. As the world number one, he gets more cracks at this than most players in history have had at his age. If anyone is going to close it out quickly, it is him.

Jon Rahm

Rahm has the U.S. Open (2021) and Masters (2023) but needs both the PGA Championship and The Open Championship. His move to LIV Golf does not block him from either, as both events remain open to LIV players. The talent is not in question. Getting up for those specific two tournaments on the right week is the only thing standing in his way.

Others with two majors

A few more are building the foundation: Collin Morikawa and Xander Schauffele each have the PGA Championship and Open Championship, both needing the Masters and U.S. Open. Brooks Koepka has the U.S. Open and PGA Championship and still needs the Masters and The Open.

None of this is guaranteed. History says the average gap between a player’s first major and completing the career Grand Slam is eight years. For Scheffler, that clock has barely started. For Spieth, it has been running for over a decade.

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The Tiger Slam: When Tiger Held All Four at Once

The Tiger Slam is the name for the four consecutive major championships Tiger Woods won between the 2000 U.S. Open and the 2001 Masters. For about ten months, he held all four titles at the same time, something no golfer had done before him and nobody has done since.

It isn’t a Calendar-Year Grand Slam, because the four wins were spread across two different seasons rather than landing inside one. But it earned its own name anyway: the Tiger Slam. Fans still argue about whether it’s a bigger achievement than a true calendar sweep would have been. There’s no clean answer, but it’s the closest anyone has come to golf’s ultimate feat in the modern era.

FAQs

Has any golfer had a Grand Slam?

Bobby Jones is the only golfer who has ever done this – he dominated the 1930 season and won all the majors in one fell swoop, but that was prior to the establishment of the modern majors. No one has achieved a clean sweep within a year in the current era so far.

How many golfers have won back-to-back Masters titles?

Only four men have done it. Jack Nicklaus won in 1965 and 1966, Nick Faldo in 1989 and 1990, Tiger Woods in 2001 and 2002, and Rory McIlroy in 2025 and 2026. It’s one of the rarest feats at Augusta, harder in some ways than winning a single green jacket, since it means peaking at the same course twice in a row against a field that’s gunning for you the second time around.

What is the hardest golf major to win?

The majority of professional players would answer the U.S. Open. The USGA designs the course in a way that it becomes extremely difficult for the players – very narrow landing areas, thick rough, and greens that do not show any faults. There are people that say the Masters is tougher because you need to have perfect knowledge of Augusta, but yearly, it is the U.S. Open that reveals the most weaknesses.

How many golfers have a Career Grand Slam?

A total of six male golfers have completed the modern Career Grand Slam, meaning they have won each of the four current majors at least once. That list is Gene Sarazen, Ben Hogan, Gary Player, Jack Nicklaus, Tiger Woods, and Rory McIlroy.

Has anyone won all four golf majors in one year?

No male professional golfer has ever won all four modern golf majors in the same calendar year. The only player to sweep four majors in a single season is Bobby Jones in 1930, but his Grand Slam was made up of the U.S. Open, The Open, the U.S. Amateur, and the British Amateur, not today’s professional lineup.

What is the difference between a career grand slam and a grand slam in golf?

A grand slam in golf technically means winning all four majors in a single calendar year. No male professional has ever done it in the modern era. A career grand slam means winning each of the four majors at least once across an entire career, regardless of how many years it takes. All six men on the list achieved the career version. The true single-year slam remains the one thing in golf that has never been done.

How many golfers are close to completing the career grand slam?

After Rory McIlroy completed his in 2025, the next conversation naturally shifts to who might be next. Scottie Scheffler is the closest, needing only the U.S. Open to complete the set. Jon Rahm has won the Masters and the U.S. Open, so he needs the PGA Championship and The Open to complete it. These things can change quickly with one good week at the right tournament, but history tells us that closing out a career grand slam is rarely straightforward, even for the best players in the world.

Is the golf grand slam harder than winning a single major?

Winning one major is already one of the hardest things in sport. The golf grand slam asks you to do it across four completely different courses, formats, and conditions, and to do it at least once at each one across a career that faces injuries, form slumps, and the pressure of knowing what’s at stake. A player can peak for one week and win a major. Completing the grand slam requires sustained excellence over years. That is a different challenge entirely.