Two-time major champion announces retirement

A two-time major champion and Hall of Famer will retire from professional golf this week.

It’ll bring an end to a 44-year career that included multiple wins on several tours around the world.

Mark O’Meara, who won the Masters and the Open in 1998, told Golf Channel that this week’s event on the PGA Tour Champions will be his last.

“It’s something I’ve kind of been playing over the last two or three years,” he said.

“My career has slowed down, I only played three events two years ago, seven last year and five this year.

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“I’m 67, turning 68 in January and I just felt enough is enough and I’ve been so blessed to play an incredible game for such a long time.

“I couldn’t have picked a better place to wind it down than Pebble Beach. It’ll be a great walk, a sad walk, but it’s one I’ve been planning on and I’m happy to do it.”

The 67-year-old will bid farewell to the game Pebble Beach Golf Links – where he won the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am five times.

In total, O’Meara contested 674 tournaments on the PGA Tour, making the cut 444 times, earning over $14 million and winning 16 titles.

He began playing on the Champions Tour in 2007, but his breakthrough triumph came three years later at the Senior Players Championship.

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It was his first and last senior major win, while this week’s event will mark his 284th start on the circuit.

His first tour victory came in 1984 at the Greater Milwaukee Open, but his career was defined in 1998.

O’Meara won a green jacket before adding the Claret jug to his trophy cabinet with a win at Royal Birkdale. He is one of only 16 players to have won two majors in one season.

After missing the cut at the 2018 Masters, he bowed out, insisting it would be his last Masters, 20 years on from winning at Augusta.

The pair of major victories that year lifted O’Meara to a career-high of No.2 in the world rankings.

John Turnbull A graduate of the University of Stirling, John joined the bunkered team in 2023 as a Content Producer, with a responsibility for covering all breaking news, tour news, grassroots content and much more besides. A keen golfer, he plays the majority of his golf at Falkirk Golf Club. Top of his 'bucket list' is a round of Pebble Beach... ideally in the company of Gareth Bale.