Between 2021 and 2024, four straight US Open Championships were won by just one stroke. Jon Rahm grinded out back-to-back birdies on 17 and 18 to pip Louis Oosthuizen at Torrey Pines, while Matt Fitzpatrick holed a bunker shot to beat Will Zalatoris by the same margin at Brookline a year later. Then, it was Wyndham Clark who held his nerve to edge out Rory McIlroy down a closing stretch that nearly broke him, before Bryson DeChambeau ensured that Wee-Mac missed out by the closest possible margin a year later.
Fast forward to 2026, and McIlroy’s memory of those back-to-back near misses is firmly in the rear-view mirror. The Northern Irishman has just reeled off consecutive successes at the Masters, becoming the first man since Tiger Woods some 24 years prior to defend the green jacket. Now, online betting sites consider him a genuine contender to win the US Open for the first time since 2011. The latest Bovada golf odds make McIlroy a 15/2 second-favourite to win the tournament, with only Scottie Scheffler (4/1) considered more likely.
Last year, J.J. Spaun won by two at Oakmont, and by recent standards, that felt almost comfortable. But while that was the biggest margin of victory in the last five years, what are the biggest margins since the turn of the millennium? Let’s take a look.
Tiger Woods, 2000
It was the 100th US Open. Jack Nicklaus walked Pebble Beach for the 44th and final time in a major. But the tournament carried weight long before Tiger Woods struck a single shot due to the untimely passing of defending champion Payne Stewart, who sadly passed away eight months before the world’s best headed to San Diego.
Then Tiger took to the tee, completing the opening round in just 65 strokes, bogey-free, the lowest opening round in US Open history at Pebble Beach, to lead by one. The second round produced the moment that told you exactly what kind of week this was going to be. Woods stood in deep rough on the sixth hole, 202 yards out, a cliff between him and the green. He pulled out a 7-iron and put it 18 feet from the cup. NBC’s Roger Maltbie had seen enough: “It’s not a fair fight.” He was already right at the halfway stage, but he had no idea how prophetically understated that line would look by Sunday.
Third round, howling winds rolled in off the Pacific. The kind of conditions the USGA dreams about — conditions designed to compress the leaderboard, to drag the leader back, to create chaos. Woods shot 71. His lead grew to ten shots over Ernie Els. The largest 54-hole lead in US Open history. He was the only player in the entire field who was under par. Padraig Harrington surveyed the leaderboard and said quietly: “He’s out there in his own tournament, isn’t he?”
And then Sunday — bogey-free 67, a final total of 12-under 272, 15 strokes clear of Els and Miguel Ángel Jiménez. The largest winning margin in major championship history. Old Tom Morris had held the record since 1862 — a 13-shot win at Prestwick — and it had survived 138 years. Woods erased it in four rounds at Pebble Beach. NBC’s Dan Hicks reached for the phrase that has stuck ever since: “the absolute Sistine Chapel of major championship performances.”
Walking off the 18th, Woods told Williams he was going to play even better at St Andrews the following month. He did.
Rory McIlroy, 2011
How do you explain what happened at Congressional without starting eight weeks earlier, at Augusta? You can’t.
Rory McIlroy’s 2011 Masters collapse is the entire architecture of the story that the US Open that followed told. In fact, it’s perhaps the moment upon which his entire legacy was built. The Northern Irishman held a four-shot lead going into Championship Sunday’s final round, before dropping six shots in three holes on the back nine and signing for an 80. Charl Schwartzel took the green jacket. McIlroy admitted he cried the morning after. Twenty-two years old, and the golf world was quietly, and not always kindly, wondering whether he had the nerve.
He showed up at Congressional and opened with 65. Three-shot lead. Then 66 to stretch it to six. He played the weekend with a composure so complete it was almost eerie — becoming only the fourth player in history to card all four rounds in the 60s at a major, joining Woods, Lee Janzen, and Lee Trevino. On the final day alone, a record 32 rounds under par were posted at Congressional. McIlroy shot 69 anyway and lapped the field. His closing total of 16-under 268 was four shots better than the previous US Open scoring record — the one Woods had set at this very tournament eleven years earlier. Jason Day finished eight shots behind.
Tiger Woods issued a statement: “What a performance from start to finish. Enjoy the win. Well done.” Martin Kaymer, watching on, offered something more withering: “It says, I think, that the Americans struggle a little bit.” McIlroy later reframed the Augusta collapse entirely — calling it “the most important day of my career.” That’s what genuine sporting self-reclamation looks like: you take the worst day of your professional life, and you turn it into fuel for one of the most dominant performances the US Open has ever seen.
