DUBLIN, Ohio — Jack Nicklaus wanted to do right by the PGA Tour. So he went along with the plan to move his Memorial Tournament to the week before the U.S. Open, even if it was something he would prefer not to do.
Now in its 49th year, Nicklaus’s tournament that was first played at Muirfield Village Golf Club in 1976 has traditionally—but not always—been played two weeks prior to the U.S. Open and in the week following Memorial Day.
The PGA Tour sought to move it as part of its signature event series. And Nicklaus said it’s a matter that will continue to be discussed.
“We would prefer the other week,” Nicklaus said Tuesday during a news conference in advance of the tournament. “However, we are here this week because the Tour asked us to help them out. They said they had a thing they wanted to do and that the players had asked for and that would we help it out, and we said yes, that we would do that this week.
“But we said we would review it after this tournament and we’ll figure out how we’re going to settle the schedule after that, and I said that discussion is under way.”
The Memorial is one of eight $20 million signature events the Tour put in place for this year with a qualification process that sees preceding events as one of the ways to get a spot in the smaller fields.
The Charles Schwab Challenge and the RBC Canadian Open kept a separate FedEx Cup points list for the top five players not otherwise qualified to earn their way into the Memorial field.
The idea, also, was to not leave regular events “stranded” between two signature events or a major championship. The Travelers Championship, the last signature event of the year, will follow the U.S. Open.
Nicklaus, 84, said that presented a problem for him personally. The Golden Bear, who won 18 major championships among his 73 PGA Tour titles, always preferred an off week prior to a major.
“Let’s put it this way. When I played, I would rarely play a week before any major championship,” Nicklaus said. “So I’m asked to be part of putting on a golf tournament in a week that I would never play. That, to me, is the essential part from my standpoint.”
Although the Memorial name is used to signify honoring a player in the game—this year it is LPGA and World Golf Hall of Famer Juli Inkster—Nicklaus said that date has often been tied to the holiday as well.
“Yesterday, was normally a very big day gallery-wise for us because it was Memorial Day, and we had maybe a thousand people here yesterday,” he said. “From the sponsor’s standpoint, I think that they get into board meetings and kids’ graduations and so forth, so that’s maybe not as advantageous.
“But that won’t make any difference. We’re going to have a good tournament this week either way, in spite of all the different things. And as I say, we did that as a favor and the Tour asked us to do that, and we said yes. So we’ve always been a supporter of the Tour. We want to try to continue to support what is best for the Tour, but we also want to support what’s best for the Memorial Tournament. So that is to be determined.”
The Tour has said it will take this summer to review the signature events. Scheduling will be studied as well as field sizes. The original intent was to have fields capped at 80 players, which has happened only at the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am. Most have been in the low 70s and could be filled out.
How a change to accommodate proper qualification as well as not leaving tournaments alone on the calendar would also have to be considered.
BOB HARIG
Bob Harig is a golf writer for SI.com and the author of the book “DRIVE: The Lasting Legacy of Tiger Woods,” which publishes in March and can be ordered here.
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