Major Championships Comparison: USGA, R&A, PGA Differences

The Four Majors At A Glance

This guide compares the four majors the way a player experiences them: who runs each event, how the course is prepared, how you get into the field, what you lift if you win, and how much you are paid. The short version is that no two of the four feel the same. A U.S. Open and a Masters could be staged in the same calendar year by entirely different people, on entirely different turf, with entirely different ideas about whether par is something to protect or something to attack. Throughout, we lean on McIlroy, who has lifted all four trophies, as a guide to where the real differences lie. For where these events sit in the wider calendar, see our 2026 PGA Tour schedule and importance ranking.

The Headline Numbers

Read those numbers as a map of the differences. Two of the four organisers (the USGA and The R&A) govern the whole game and run the two open championships. One (the PGA of America) is the home of the club professional and keeps a door open for them. One (Augusta National) is a private club running an invitational. The four events span 166 years of history, three different countries of origin and two different philosophies of how hard a course should play. The rest of this page unpacks each of those.

Who Runs What: The Four Governing Bodies

The most common confusion in golf is who runs which event, not least because three of the four have the word "golf" or "PGA" in their name. Here is the clean version. None of the four majors is run by the PGA Tour, which is a separate members' organisation that stages the regular weekly schedule.

The USGA and The R&A are the two that matter for the rules of the sport. They jointly write and maintain the Rules of Golf, the World Handicap System and the equipment standards that every other organisation, including Augusta National and the PGA of America, plays under. The USGA's jurisdiction is the United States and Mexico; The R&A's is everywhere else. So when you watch the U.S. Open and The Open, you are watching the two rule-makers stage their own national-style open championships. When you watch the Masters and the PGA Championship, you are watching a private club and a professional association stage their own events under those same rules.

The Side-By-Side Comparison

Before taking each major in turn, here is the whole comparison in one table. The figures are the typical pattern rather than a fixed rule, because venues and setups change year to year.

The single row that tells the most is the field. Three of the four are open championships in spirit, with 156 starters and a real qualifying route, while the Masters stands apart as a small invitational on a course the field knows by heart. The other revealing row is "course type": only The Open is tied to one kind of golf, links, while the U.S. Open is defined less by the type of course than by how savagely the USGA chooses to set it up.

The Masters: The Invitational

The Masters is the youngest of the four, first played in 1934, and the most distinctive. It is run by Augusta National Golf Club, founded by the amateur great Bobby Jones and Clifford Roberts, and it is the only major that is an invitation rather than an open championship. There is no qualifying. Augusta National publishes a set of categories, past champions, recent major winners, leading players from the world ranking and the previous season, and a small number of leading amateurs, and invites everyone who fits. The result is the smallest field in major golf, usually around 90 players.

It is also the only major returning to the same course every year, which means the field knows Augusta National's greens and its run through Amen Corner better than any other major venue. The course is immaculate parkland with no real rough, a "second cut" that is barely penal, and greens so fast and contoured that the tournament is often decided by putting and angles rather than driving. The winner receives the green jacket, kept at the club and worn for a year, plus a lifetime invitation to return. McIlroy's 2025 win, the leg that completed his career Grand Slam, is covered in our Masters history guide.

The PGA Championship: The Professionals' Major

The PGA Championship, first played in 1916, is run by the PGA of America, and the most important thing to know is that the PGA of America is not the PGA Tour. The PGA of America is the body that represents the country's club and teaching professionals, the people who run pro shops and give lessons, rather than the touring stars. That heritage shows up in the field: the PGA Championship is the only major that reserves 20 places for club professionals, who earn them through the PGA Professional Championship. The rest of the 156-player field is the world's best, qualified through exemptions and the ranking.

For most of its history the PGA Championship was the last major of the year, played in August and marketed as "Glory's Last Shot." In 2019 it moved to May, slotting in as the second major, which gave the season a cleaner run of one major a month from April to July. It was a match-play event until 1958 and has been stroke play since. The champion lifts the Wanamaker Trophy, the largest of the four prizes. McIlroy has won it twice, at Kiawah Island in 2012 by a record eight shots and at Valhalla in 2014, and the 2026 edition heads to Aronimink, a 1928 Donald Ross design.

The U.S. Open: The Hardest Test

The U.S. Open, first played in 1895, is run by the USGA, and it has a clear identity: it is the major that sets out to find the best player by making the course as hard as it fairly can. The USGA's setup philosophy is to defend par, with narrow fairways, thick and penal rough, firm and fast greens, and a par that is often 70 rather than the more usual 72. Even-par regularly wins, and the winning score being over par is not a shock. The aim is a brutal but fair examination, and in some years, such as Shinnecock in 2004, the USGA has been criticised for pushing the setup over the edge into unfair.

It is also the most genuinely open of the four. Any professional, and any amateur with a Handicap Index of 0.4 or lower, can enter and try to qualify through local and final qualifying, the long two-stage marathon nicknamed golf's longest day. That is how a club pro or a teenager can, in theory, tee it up alongside the world number one. The champion lifts the U.S. Open Trophy and receives the Jack Nicklaus Medal. McIlroy's breakthrough major came here, at Congressional in 2011, where he won by eight shots with a record total, and the 2026 U.S. Open returns to the wind-and-fescue test at Shinnecock Hills.

The Open Championship: The Oldest, On Links

The Open Championship, first played at Prestwick in 1860, is the oldest major and the oldest championship in golf. It is run by The R&A from the home of the game at St Andrews, and it is the only major played entirely on links, the firm, treeless, seaside turf where the sport began. It rotates around a small group of championship links in Scotland and England, courses such as St Andrews, Royal Birkdale, Royal Liverpool, Royal Troon and Carnoustie.

Links golf makes The Open a different kind of hard from the U.S. Open. The defence is not thick rough but the wind, firm running ground and deep pot bunkers, and the test changes hour by hour with the weather coming off the sea. Players have to flight the ball low, bounce shots in and accept that luck plays a larger part than at any other major. The champion lifts the Claret Jug, properly the Golf Champion Trophy, the most storied prize in golf, and earns the title Champion Golfer of the Year. McIlroy won it at Royal Liverpool in 2014, and the 2026 Open heads to Royal Birkdale. For the skills links demands, see our guide to playing golf in the wind.

How You Get In: Qualification Compared

The four majors fill their fields in very different ways, which is one of the clearest contrasts between them.

The pattern is that three of the four keep a door open to the wider game, while the Masters keeps its field closed and invited. It is no accident that the two run by the sport's governing bodies, the U.S. Open and The Open, are the most genuinely open, since their identity as national-style open championships is built into how they are run.

Setup And Tradition: Why No Two Feel The Same

Beyond who runs them, the four majors differ most in how the course plays and what each event values. A simple way to hold it in your head:

• The Masters rewards course knowledge and nerve on the greens. No rough to speak of, but slick, contoured greens and tight angles into the flags. The same course every year means experience counts more here than anywhere.
• The PGA Championship is the most "normal" modern setup. Big, strong-field stroke play on a good course, generally allowing birdies, with the club-pro tradition adding its own flavour. Winning scores tend to be low.
• The U.S. Open protects par at almost any cost. Narrow fairways, deep rough, lightning greens and a lower par. The number that wins is often around even, and survival matters as much as brilliance.
• The Open is decided by wind and ground. Links turf, pot bunkers and the weather mean creativity, flight control and patience beat raw power. The same player can shoot 65 and 78 on consecutive days.

That spread is why a complete major champion has to be a complete player. You need the touch for Augusta's greens, the all-round game for a PGA setup, the discipline to survive a U.S. Open and the imagination to handle a links. Very few players have proved they own all four skills, which is exactly what a career Grand Slam certifies.

Rory McIlroy And All Four Majors

Because Rory McIlroy has won each of the four, his record is a neat tour of how different they are. He is the sixth man to complete the career Grand Slam, joining Gene Sarazen, Ben Hogan, Gary Player, Jack Nicklaus and Tiger Woods, and he did it by winning all four kinds of test:

• U.S. Open, Congressional 2011: his first major, won by eight shots with a record total, on a USGA setup he simply overpowered with precision.
• PGA Championship, Kiawah 2012 and Valhalla 2014: two Wanamaker Trophies, the first by a record eight shots, the second in a tense finish, on strong-field stroke-play courses.
• The Open, Royal Liverpool 2014: the links leg, controlling flight and the firm ground to lead from the front and lift the Claret Jug.
• The Masters, Augusta 2025: the long-chased final leg, the invitational on the course he knew best, which completed the slam and made him the sixth man to do it.

The order is telling. McIlroy had three legs by 2014 and then waited more than a decade for the Masters, the one major you cannot qualify into and the one most about nerve and history. That he needed the invitational, not the open championships, to finish the set is its own comment on how different the four really are. For where his year goes next, see the Rory McIlroy 2026 season tracker, and for the events around the majors, our 2026 schedule and importance ranking.

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