The second major of the 2025 golf season has arrived with plenty of players looking to set a tone for the remainder of the campaign. While no one enters with particular pressure on their shoulders, Rory McIlroy will be looking to become the first golfer since 2015 to win the first two major championships of the year.

Jordan Spieth has never stopped dreaming of a career Grand Slam, and Rory McIlroy's triumph at Augusta National has only inspired him to make it happen.

While all the focus in the golf world is on the second major of the PGA Tour season, with the PGA Championship beginning on Thursday, a major decision was made by the world’s No. 2-ranked golfer, Rory McIlroy,

McIlroy, of course, is coming off a win at the Masters to complete the career Grand Slam. Scheffler won last year’s Masters and won for the first time in 2025 in resounding style two weeks ago at the CJ Cup Byron Nelson, his hometown event. Schauffele is the defending PGA champion and also won the British Open last July.

Xander Schauffele won a pair of majors last season, but he is completely out of the spotlight heading into his first title defense at the PGA Championship.

The Tiger Woods of 1999 and 2000 won 17 PGA Tour events in his early 20s and suddenly, explosively, was the dominant force in golf. He had fully burst into the spotlight with his eye-popping performance at the 1997 Masters,

Rahm seemingly escaped the funk that July when he finished T7 at The Open Championship, though that included a late Sunday charge. He won his first two individual LIV Golf titles later that month, but even so, no longer stood as the upstart league's greatest threat.