​Seems like just yesterday that we were talking about gnomes and azaleas and pimento cheese sandwiches, and here we are at the end of golf’s major season. Seems that way because it practically is that way — from the moment that Jack Nicklaus strokes the ceremonial opening tee shot at the Masters to the moment that the Open Champion lifts the Claret Jug is a run that lasts barely 100 days.Consider: Indiana won the national championship, Seattle won the Super Bowl and the Winter Olympics came and went before the 2026 Masters even began. Golf’s major season — the four tournaments which shape players’ legacies like no others — arrives in late spring and departs in mid-summer, leaving us all with nearly nine months to wait before it all comes around again.AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisement“This major season always feels like it goes quicker and quicker every year,” Rory McIlroy noted from Royal Birkdale on Tuesday. He’s not wrong.It’s not been 100 days since Rory McIlroy won his second straight green jacket.(Ben Jared via Getty Images)The intensely packed schedule is the result of several factors pushing on the golf calendar from all sides, most notably the 2019 move of the PGA Championship from August back to May. The PGA Championship did that in part for some professional courtesy, allowing for the PGA Tour to wrap up its playoffs before the start of the NFL season.Plus, the move opens up more venues for the PGA Championship, most notably the PGA’s upcoming flagship course in Frisco, Texas. That course would be unpleasant at best, unplayable at worst, if the PGA returned to August. And the Players Championship’s move from May to March offers agronomic possibilities for the course that aren’t possible once Florida temps hit May levels.AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementPlayers tend to hold close their opinions on matters outside their control; why expend effort that doesn’t need to be expended? Scottie Scheffler is a perfect example; when asked about the tight turnaround, he offered his own perspective but no solutions.“I felt like we were at the U.S. Open a couple weeks ago,” he said. “It does happen pretty quickly. Maybe there could be more of a break, but that’s one of those things that’s so far out of my control, I couldn’t even begin to think about it.”McIlroy, of course, is a constant exception to that rule. He offered up what he saw as the “pros and cons” to the tight major season on Tuesday afternoon at Royal Birkdale.“I’d like to see the major season spread out a little bit longer,”  he said. “The Masters is always going to have the buildup, but I think then PGA into U.S. Open, U.S. Open into here, it just seems like it’s very, very quick.” He noted that the powers-that-be could benefit from a longer major season — expanded interest in the game’s largest tournaments is always a plus, from any side.AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementOn the player side of the equation, though, a ti