COLUMBUS, Ohio — The PGA Tour has a big personality problem, in that it doesn’t have big personalities, which is a problem.
Throughout most of its history, professional golf has touted its character but depended on its characters to help glow if not grow the game by shining a TMZ-type spotlight on itself. For every gentleman Bobby Jones there was a wild-child Walter Hagen, whose idea of a good time included birdies, blondes and brunettes.
“I never wanted to be a millionaire,” said Hagen, winner of 11 major championships and the first professional golfer to earn seven figures over a career that ran from 1912 through the mid-1940s. “I just wanted to live like one.”
For every even-keeled Jack Nicklaus there has been an oddball Mac O’Grady; for every John Cook an alter ego John Daly. But now these sometimes affable, sometimes unbearable and often eccentric personalities are gone, not extinct but playing for LIV Golf. That is bad news for the PGA Tour, and by extension for the Memorial Tournament. Sizzle sells, especially among younger fans. See the NBA.
First things first.
The Memorial is among the best non-major events on tour. It will be just fine. Muirfield Village Golf Club has been a destination spot for the best players since it began hosting the Memorial in 1976. The perfectly-conditioned course, host Jack Nicklaus and those diabolically delectable milkshakes annually attract the top golfers to Dublin. This year’s field so far includes seven of the top 10 players in the world. Jack’s baby still holds cachet among those who play the game for a living.
Fans seek autographs from Jack Nicklaus at the Memorial Tournament on May 31, 2022 at the Muirfield Village Golf Club in Dublin, Ohio. Mandatory Credit: Doral Chenoweth-The Columbus Dispatch
“It’s one of, if not the best events on the PGA Tour,” 2022 Memorial winner Billy Horschel said. “They do everything first class. There’s not a stone left unturned. You think about majors and The Players; I’d put those in their own category, and this one is the next one just below those.”
A defending champion can be expected to offer such platitudes, but money talks even louder than Horschel, and the Memorial has plenty of it. Designated as one of eight elevated tour events, the purse for the 47-year-old tournament jumps from $12 million to $20 million this year, a 60 percent increase. The cash explosion likely will lure players who previously often passed up the Memorial, either…
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