Ranking the best of each major championship in the 2010s

Best of the PGA Championship: Rory McIlroy fends off Rickie Fowler, Phil Mickelson and Henrik Stenson at Valhalla

The PGA Championship doesn’t have the prestige of the Masters, the challenge of the U.S. Open, or the history of the Open Championship. But what it does have, more often than not, is some fine golf on some outstanding tracks. And when you put the absolute best of the best in a shootout on a Sunday evening…well, you can come up with some magic.

Such was the case at Valhalla, the legendary course in Louisville, Kentucky, on August 10, 2014. Rory McIlroy held a one-stroke lead entering the final round, but he was pushed to the very end by a trio of worthy contenders.

First among them was Mickelson, who started the day three back, but tied for the lead after a pair of birdies on the first three holes. Rickie Fowler made a bogey on the second hole, but three straight birdies actually gave him the lead through five. And Henrik Stenson, steady as ever, grinded away with five birdies on the front nine, before finally slowing a bit down the stretch.

Each of the four held at least a share of the lead at one point during the round, but the final five holes gave McIlroy the narrow victory. Mickelson bogeyed 16 to lose his share of the lead, and a closing birdie wasn’t enough. Fowler and Stenson each made bogey on 14, parring out to finish two back.

The old line about the Masters is that it doesn’t start until the second nine on Sunday. At this PGA Championship, the front nine shootout kept all four players on edge into the night, knowing that every slight miss could be the difference between victory and defeat. Any one of them would have been a worthy champion. McIlroy simply got the job done better than the rest.

Honorable Mention

This one was close. If I had to give the nod to any other PGA of the 2010s, it would be the 2018 event at Bellerive. The Sunday charge by Tiger Woods to almost come back from a four-stroke deficit was incredible drama, especially after what he did at the Open just a month prior. And that’s no disrespect to the champion, Brooks Koepka, who stared down a challenge from arguably the greatest to ever play the game, and easily the biggest fan favorite. Not many stare down Tiger like that, even today.

And there you have it – the best of each of the four majors, at least as I see it. Let me know which one you loved the most, and here’s to another decade (and many more!) of great majors in golf.