Memorial Tournament
Muirfield Village Golf Club was the dream of Nicklaus and Desmond Muirhead, they acquired the land back in 1966 but construction didn’t begin until July 1972. The golf course, which is situated on 220 acres and was officially opened for play on Memorial Day 1974 with an exhibition match between Nicklaus and Tom Weiskopf.
Muirfield Village currently sits in Golf Digest's "America's 100 Greatest Courses," at number 17. After recent changes the course now measures 7,221 and has 71 bunkers and water comes into play on 11 holes.
The Memorial Tournament has grown into one of golf's major tournaments and Muirfield Village Golf Club, which is controlled by Jack Nicklaus, makes changes to the course each autumn in order to keep up with new technology.
In recent years changes have included lengthening several holes, including the first, tenth, twelfth and seventeenth, adding or removing bunkers, re-routing a stream on the eighteenth. In 2007, the par-three 8th and the par five 15th were both lengthened and bunkers on the 1st re-shaped and deepened to the hole tougher.
This Weeks Tips
Jim Furyk @ 25/1 - Has had a win here in 2002 and two other runners-up finishes and has only finished outside the Top 25 once since his last runners-up placing in 2009, which is a great track record here, and add to that his recent form of four Top 10 finishes from his last six events, including another runners-up finish at the Players Championship, and you can see why we are tipping here this week.
Bo Van Pelt @ 66/1 - Another player who hasn’t been outside the Top 25 here since 2010 and with his Top 15 finish at last week’s Crown Plaza Invitational, and another Top 25 at the Zurich Classic where he shot a second round 63, shows that the lad from Richmond, Indiana could be challenging here this week.
Brian Davis @ 125/1 - Top 15 finishes from his last three events and started the Crown Plaza Invitational playing some great golf. Davis had a Top 10 finish here last year, in fact he has not been outside the Top 25 since 2011, and in the form the American based Cockney is in, I can see him challenging for the money places this week and at these odds that’s got to be worth a quid each-way.