DUBLIN, Ohio – Jack Nicklaus called the field at this week’s Memorial Tournament “probably as good a field as we’ve ever had.”
“They’re all here,” he said on Tuesday in a press conference ahead of the tournament he hosts at Muirfield Village Golf Club, the club he built and that has played host to an annual PGA Tour stop since 1976.
Jack’s Place traditionally attracts a star-studded field regardless of status but being elevated to a designated event with a $20 million purse hasn’t hurt the 120-man field. Indeed, seven of the top 10 in the Official World Golf Ranking and 38 of the top 50 are in the field as well as 25 of the top 30 in the FedEx Cup standings and 22 of the 27 players that have won on Tour this season.
He added, “For all intents and purposes all the top players in the world are here.”
But those impressive figures don’t include two of the four reigning major champions — British Open winner Cameron Smith and PGA Championship winner Brooks Koepka — and regular participants such as Phil Mickelson, Dustin Johnson and 2018 winner Bryson DeChambeau.
Nicklaus said he sent a congratulatory note to Koepka after he won the PGA two weeks ago at Oak Hill, where he won the Wanamaker Trophy in 1980. Nicklaus has tried his best to stay out of the confrontation between the PGA Tour and LIV Golf, but he has an opinion on most every subject and never has been too shy to tell anyone what he really thinks.
“There were certain players that it was probably the right thing for,” Nicklaus said of joining LIV. “It probably spurred the PGA Tour, I don’t think there’s any question about that, either, to move it to greater heights. But it wasn’t for me, it wasn’t for what my legacy was. Obviously, I pretty much started what the Tour is out here.”
Golfers wait to tee off during a practice round for the Memorial Tournament at Muirfield Village Golf Club. (Photo: Adam Cairns/Columbus Dispatch)
Asked if he was disappointed not to have the reigning major winners in the field this week, he said, “I don’t even consider those guys part of the game anymore. I don’t mean that in a nasty way. This is a PGA Tour event and we have the best field we can possibly have for a PGA Tour event for those who are eligible to be here. The other guys made a choice of what they did and where they’ve gone and we don’t even talk about it.”
Nicklaus added that six or seven LIV players are members of the Bears Club, the private club he…
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