Ohio State legend Jack Nicklaus celebrates the 50th anniversary of the Memorial Tournament
· Yahoo Sports
Today the Memorial Tournament, which is hosted by former Ohio State Buckeye Jack Nicklaus, gets underway at Muirfield Village Golf Club in Dublin. This year marks the 50th anniversary of the tournament, and will feature the majority of the golfers currently in the top-10 of the Official World Golf Rankings.
For many of the golfers teeing it up at Muirfield at Jack’s Place, it will be their final tune-up before the U.S. Open at Shinnecock Hills Golf Club in two weeks.
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The first Memorial Tournament took place in 1976, with Roger Maltbie defeating Hale Irwin in a playoff. The next year Jack Nicklaus would go on to win the tournament that he hosts. The second title for the Golden Bear came in 1984. Nicklaus is one of six golfers with two wins at the Memorial.
Last year Scottie Scheffler had little trouble winning the tournament for a second straight year, beating Ben Griffin by four strokes.
This year Scheffler will try and join Tiger Woods as the only golfers to win the Memorial in three straight years. Woods has won the Memorial five times during his career, which is the most of any golfer. When Woods won in 2012 he registered his 73rd PGA Tour victory, which tied Nicklaus for second-most at the time.
If Scheffler is able to win this year, he will tie Kenny Perry for second-most wins at the Memorial, as Perry has won the event three times.
Even though the Memorial Tournament isn’t one of the four major golf tournaments, it is one of five tournaments on tour which has been given invitational status. While most tournaments have over 150 golfers, this year’s edition of the Memorial will feature 72 golfers.
The only golfer from the top-10 of the OGWR who won’t be competing in this year’s Memorial will be Collin Morikawa, who is currently ranked seventh.
The tournament officially starts at 7:45 a.m. ET when Brian Campbell and Pierceson Coody tee off. Highlighting the morning wave of golfers are Jason Day, Jordan Spieth, Rory McIlroy, Justin Thomas, Cameron Young, and Tommy Fleetwood.
During the afternoon, all eyes will be on Scheffler and PGA Championship winner Aaron Rai, who will be in the third-to-last group of the day. Xander Schauffele and Ludvig Åberg will tee off just before Scheffler and Rai.
While there aren’t any Buckeyes in this year’s tournament field, a crowd favorite will likely be Jason Day. The Australian now makes his home in Westerville. The winner of the 2015 PGA Championship has won 13 times on the PGA Tour, but now hasn’t won on tour in over three years, with his last victory coming at the 2023 AT&T Byron Nelson.
Even though there won’t be any Ohio State players in this year’s tournament, there were a couple Buckeyes who played in this year’s Golden Bear Pro-Am. Head coach Jake Diebler and former quarterback Bobby Hoying were part of the event on Wednesday. Diebler, Hoying and Ohio State deputy athletic director played the front nine with Brian Harman, and the back nine with Lucas Glover.
The Memorial Tournament isn’t all about golf. The tournament helps a number of charitable initiatives, with the primary beneficiary being Nationwide Children’s Hospital.
On Wednesday morning, eight Ohio State players, including quarterback Julian Sayin, held a clinic with this year’s Golden Cubs, which is a group of 10 current and former Nationwide Children’s Hospital patients.
Each year there is an induction ceremony to honor past golfers. After Barbara Nicklaus was the lone honoree last year, this year David Graham and Allan Robertson will honored. Graham won on the PGA Tour eight times, including the 1980 Memorial Tournament, where he beat Tom Watson by a stroke.
Robertson is a posthumous honoree, who was a golfer and ball-maker in Scotland in the 1800s.
For those not attending this year’s tournament, coverage of the first and second rounds of this year’s Memorial can be seen on the Golf Channel, while CBS will take over this weekend and air the final two rounds of the tournament.