The Memorial Tournament moved to July during last year’s COVID-altered season. Jack Nicklaus’s occasion returns this year to early June, midway in between the PGA Championship and the U.S. Open.
Nevertheless, the typically strong field will be seeing the once-familiar program at Muirfield Village Golf Club for the first time given that the significant restorations. Exactly how it will certainly bet the PGA Tour’s ideal is any individual’s assumption.
According to CBS Sports golf anchor Jim Nantz, “Memorial Tournament always has among the greatest areas in golf, as well as it’s played at one of the best facilities worldwide, Muirfield Village. So any method you shake it, the story is going to be the chase for the champion, with it featuring a number of the greatest as well as most decorated names in the sport. This is Jack Nicklaus’s competition. Jack’s the greatest champion the video game has ever known, with 18 majors. This course is his showcase residential property. It’s his work of art. He’s terribly pleased with it, he needs to be, because it’s one of the most effective fairway on the planet.
Having said that, when we were right here last summer season, as the leaders were playing the back 9 at Muirfield Village, we in fact reduced to a shot of a greens team abusing the sixth environment-friendly. Play had actually already undergone. They felt like they really did not have a min to spare to tear down the training course and reconstruct it in time for the 2021 Memorial Tournament.”
While the competition goes back to 1976, the training course opened a few years prior to. Muirfield Village is the creation of famous golf enthusiast Jack Nicklaus, that intended to bring Augusta-caliber golf to central Ohio. His refinements with the years have actually bolstered Muirfield’s online reputation as one of the finest calculated designs in the world. Nicklaus has taken care of the advancement of the fairway to stay up to date with the transforming designs of existing players.
In the in 2014, the program has actually been entirely reimagined, from the tees to the fairways to the shelters to the eco-friendlies. Much of the tees were relocated, and most of the fairways have been improved or rerouted. A lot of shelters have been added or secured, or just readjusted. As well as the greens are entirely various, with a few of them relocated as well as all of them rebuilded. The 4th and 15th openings– a 561-yard par-5 and a 210-yard par-3– might be the most drastically altered. The program will certainly play as a par-72, determining 7,543 yards.
” This is Jack’s personal ode to Augusta National,” as Nantz places it. “He wished to go construct his Augusta National. When he purchased this building back in the mid 60s as well as began building on it, he wanted this to be what Augusta was for Bob Jones. And also he’s done it. He’s pulled off among the greatest occasions on the planet. As well as you have a background of highly pedigreed champs right here that speak with that, most lately Jon Rahm last summertime, one of the top five players on the planet. That’s what this location generates, it produces great champs on a stunning phase.”
The next excellent champion will certainly originate from possibly the best area the Tour will certainly see beyond a major. 7 of the world’s top-10 gamers will challenge Muirfield Village today. That consists of second-ranked Justin Thomas, that is coming off a frustrating tie for 40th at the Charles Schwab Challenge, and third-ranked Jon Rahm, that is the safeguarding champ. Rounding out the top 5, Bryson DeChambeau and also Xander Schauffele will also tee it up.
Memorial favorites can be found further down the rankings also. Those consist of Rory McIlroy and Jordan Spieth, 2 gamers whose video game is rounding back right into type. “The area, as usual, is loaded with nearly every big name in the game,” states Nantz. “Whether it’s Jordan Spieth, whose renewal in 2021 is just one of the largest tales of the year in golf, or whether it’s Rory McIlroy, that likewise came out of a much, much smaller mini win drought to take the [Wells Fargo Championship] title one month earlier in Charlotte at Quail Hollow.”
Spieth might have won again at the Charles Schwab had his video game not faltered on Sunday. The previous number-one player went into the final day a stroke ahead of eventual victor Jason Kokrak as well as 5 strokes in advance of the area. After firing 3-over the same level 73, he completed the day two strokes back. It was an unsatisfactory end to an occasion where he fired 63-66-66 to provide himself the lead. The down day does not detract from yet another strong showing for the video game’s most popular gamer. Spieth has 8 top-10 coatings in 12 occasions this year. Which consists of a win at the Valero Texas Open in very early April.
McIlroy when held the leading position also, and also far more just recently than Spieth. He is likewise experiencing a sort of return to form, though he really did not drop almost as far in the rankings. McIlroy won the Wells Fargo in early May as well as split the top 10 at the Arnold Palmer Invitational as well as WGC-Mexico Championship before that.
Here are the faves:
Jon Rahm (10-1)
Rahm won the Memorial last year with a score of 279, which is amongst the higher winning scores in years. (Of program, the track will play really in a different way this time around.) He’s played well since that win. The in 2014 has consisted of three top-10 surfaces at majors as well as much more in routine Tour occasions. Rahm is amongst the Tour’s ideal at getting strokes from the tee to the green.
Rory McIlroy (14-1)
McIlroy, the world’s eighth-ranked player, has 4 top-10 coatings at the Memorial in his 9 looks. One of the most recent came in 2018, when he finished eighth. McIlroy remains to be among the Tour’s best off the tee, where he’s sixth-best at getting strokes.
Jordan Spieth (14-1)
Spieth has actually turned his game around and has to be thought about among the faves for every occasion he enters. The globe’s 23rd-ranked gamer has leapt nearly 60 spots given that the beginning of the year. His last win was two months earlier, though he practically had another recently. Spieth’s ideal finish at Muirfield was 3rd back in 2015, though he also finished seventh in 2019.