Golf's four majors are played in the same order every year, which makes the question of when the next major golf 2026 is easier to answer than many think. First up in the spring is the Masters in April, followed by the PGA Championship in May, the US Open in June, and The Open in mid-July. As soon as one has just been decided, you always know which is next in line.
What sets them apart is not the calendar but the character. A course mown to the centimetre in Georgia demands something entirely different from salt blown across a Scottish links. Here we go through each of the four, in the order they arrive, and what actually decides who lifts the trophy.
The order of golf's four majors during a season
The four men's championships counted as majors are decided between April and July. The Masters opens the season and is the only one of the four that is always played on the same course. The other three then rotate between different venues, which means the conditions change from year to year even though the name of the tournament stays the same.
For a viewer at home on the sofa, this is the most useful knowledge: as soon as one major is decided, you have roughly a month until the next. If you want to dig deeper into how the championships relate to each other and to the rest of tour life, there is an overview of big golf tournaments that puts the weeks into context.
The four championships and what decides them
The Masters at Augusta
The Masters is played every April at Augusta National in Georgia, and it is the only major that returns to exactly the same ground year after year. That gives the course an almost biological familiarity: the same dogleg at the thirteenth, the same water waiting at the twelfth, the same azaleas in bloom. The winner is rewarded with the green jacket, which may be worn but not taken home the first year. The speed of the greens is notorious, and it is often there that the tournament is decided rather than on the long shots. If you want to know more about the place, there is an in-depth look at where Augusta golf is located.
The PGA Championship
Next in line, in May, comes the PGA Championship. It moves between different courses in the USA and has a reputation for being the most purely professional competition of the four, where the field is often considered the deepest. The setups tend to reward power and precision in equal measure, and because the courses change from year to year, the preparation becomes an art of its own. A player who dominates in Georgia in April may face completely different demands just a few weeks later.
The US Open
The US Open is decided in June and is known for being the hardest of the four to get around. The courses are set up with narrow fairways, high rough, and greens bordering on the unfair, and the winning scores are often considerably closer to par than in the other majors. The philosophy is simple: the championship should find the one who plays most flawlessly, not the one who hits the most spectacular shots. Patience becomes as valuable here as technique.
The Open
The season's last major, The Open, is played in mid-July on a links course in the United Kingdom. Links is the original form of golf, played on sandy coastal land where the wind is a constant partner and the ball is expected to roll along the ground rather than fly all the way in. The weather can turn a round in half an hour, and the low, controlled ball flight becomes decisive. It is golf in its oldest and most unpredictable form, and the winner gets to lift the Claret Jug.
Why the same player rarely wins all four in the same year
That the four demand such different qualities is the whole point. A ball flighter with a high, soft landing thrives on fast American greens but can struggle in Scottish wind where a flat, penetrating ball pays off. Anyone who collects victories across several different majors therefore does so not by playing the same way everywhere, but by adapting their game to what the course requires. That is also why a so-called grand slam within a single year is considered nearly unattainable.
Once you understand the differences between the formats, the viewing becomes immediately richer. A bogey at the US Open can be a good hole, while the same number at Augusta is a step backwards. For those who want to read the leaderboard with a surer eye, an understanding of what a major actually means in relation to a regular tour week helps.
How to bring the feeling from the major tournaments to your own round
Major weeks tend to spark the urge to play, and the natural consequence is that you want to get out there yourself. Here the equipment plays a quieter but real role. On a warm June morning, of the kind the US Open takes place in, a performance polo in a functional fabric ensures the sweat is wicked away instead of settling like a wet film against your back through the swing. It sits close enough not to flap in the backswing and lets air through when the pace picks up.
If the wind blows the way it does on a links course, another layer is needed without losing the mobility in the shoulders. A crewneck windbreaker - seagrass green breaks the wind over your back without building volume, which lets you swing through the shot as freely as on a windless hole. When the morning is chilly but the afternoon mild, a midlayer q-zip fills the gap: the zip at the neck lets you regulate the warmth hole by hole instead of either freezing or overheating.
The sun on an open fairway is rarely something to play with, and a visor - military green keeps the light out of your eyes on approaches to the green while letting the head cool from above. And when the greens are Augusta-fast, short putts become a nervy affair even for you, and then a dry towel like the LCLRL Towel over the bag is worth its weight in gold for keeping your grip steady throughout the round.
Golf is as much about being present all the way around as it is about the individual shot, whether you follow the pros or stand over your own ball. Local Rule builds garments for exactly that feeling, where the style holds from the first tee to the nineteenth hole, and you can see the full range at Local Rule when you plan your next round in the aftermath of the major spirit.
