Welcome to Jack’s Place.
Jack Nicklaus’s Memorial Tournament will be played at Muirfield Village Golf Club in Dublin, Ohio, for the 50th year. A 72-player field will duel for the $20 million purse, with a 36-hole cut. The winner will claim 20% of the purse, plus a coveted handshake from Nicklaus.
From its field, course, history, tee times and how to watch, here’s everything you need to know for the 2025 Memorial Tournament.
The field
Rory McIlroy is opting not to play this week, but aside from him, eight of the top 10 in the world will be teeing it up, including defending champion and world No. 1 Scottie Scheffler.
There will also be six past winners: Scheffler (2024), Viktor Hovland( 2023), Patrick Cantlay (2021, 2019), Hideki Matsuyama (2014), Matt Kuchar (2013), Justin Rose (2010).
Seven players who finished inside the top 10 in last week’s Charles Schwab Challenge: Ben Griffin (won), Matti Schmid (second), Bud Cauley (third), Tommy Fleetwood (T4), Scheffler (T4), J.J. Spaun (T6), Robert MacIntyre (T6).
The sponsor exemptions are Rickie Fowler, Kuchar, Brandt Snedeker and Jordan Spieth.
The course
Muirfield Village is no layup.
“It’s just a ball-striking golf course,” Davis Riley said last year. “You’ve got to hit a lot of fairways, a lot of greens. Similar to Colonial, you got to drive it in the fairway, and fairways and greens are going to be the premium, just because when you get in this rough, it's so thick and it can be very tricky around and just off the fairway. So definitely a ball-striking premium.”
Players still love competing here, though.
“I’ll play this tournament no matter when it is, to be honest,” Collin Morikawa said in 2024. “I think it’s one of my favorite events.”
The 7,569-yard par-72 was the fourth hardest course on Tour last year. With Scheffler winning at 8 under, it yielded a scoring average of 73.504.
Its toughest hole is its closing, 480-yard par-4, which played 0.312 strokes over par in 2024, making it the 22nd hardest hole on Tour.
Its easiest hole, meanwhile, is the 561-yard par-5 15th, which played to a scoring average of 4.708 last season.
In 2020, the course underwent a restoration with length added and many of the greens recontoured.
The course will be the fifth-longest played on Tour so far this season, and its 5,000-square-foot greens are tied for the third smallest on Tour. The course also boasts 68 bunkers and water is in play on 13 holes.
Welcome to #theMemorial @PGATOUR pic.twitter.com/SZnjxcCoHD
— the Memorial (@MemorialGolf) May 26, 2025
History: Tiger’s flop
It might be Nicklaus’s tournament, but Tiger Woods has a spot in the Golden Bear’s cove.
Woods has won the Memorial five times (1999–01, 2009, 2012). And the last of those triumphs boasts one of the Woods’s greatest shots.
Trailing by two strokes on the par-3 16th hole, Woods had a gnarly lie in the rough after hitting a 7-iron over the green. Fifty feet from the hole, he then hit a perfect flop shot, which landed softly on the green and trickled into the cup.
An indelible fist pump ensued.
“That was one of the most incredible golf shots I think you’ll ever see played,” Nicklaus said afterward.
Added Woods: “It’s one of the hardest ones I’ve pulled off. The shot was really difficult, but it wouldn't have been so bad if I had a good lie. The lie was just a little bit marginal where it brought water into play. I went for it. I pulled it off, and for it to land as soft as it did was kind of a surprise because it was baked out and it was also downhill running away from me. It just fell in. I didn't think it was going to get there at one point. Kind of like 16 at Augusta (in 2005), I thought I was going to leave it short somehow, and then it fell in.”
Woods went on to notch his 73rd win on Tour, matching Nicklaus for the second-most all-time.
“He had to rub it in my face right here, didn’t he?" Nicklaus said with a laugh. "No, if he’s going to do it, which he was obviously going to, I'd like to see it happen here. And the way he did it, you know, he just played great.”
"I don't think, under the circumstances, I've ever seen a better shot."
— PGA TOUR (@PGATOUR) June 1, 2021
The flop heard 'round the world from @TigerWoods in 2012.#TOURVault pic.twitter.com/Elao26ThQ1
How to watch (all times EST)
- Thursday: 2–6 p.m. ET (Golf Channel)
- Friday: 2–6 p.m. ET (Golf Channel)
- Saturday: 2–5:30 p.m. ET (Golf Channel), 5:30–7:30 p.m. ET (CBS)
- Sunday: 1–2:30 p.m. ET (Golf Channel), 2:30–6:30 p.m. ET (CBS)
ESPN+ will also have featured coverage during each round.
Round 1 and 2 tee times
Tee times and pairings for rounds one and two at the Memorial Championship presented by Workday pic.twitter.com/6721SgAoTk
— PGA TOUR Communications (@PGATOURComms) May 27, 2025
This article was originally published on www.si.com as Memorial Tournament Preview: Field, Course, History, Tee Times, How to Watch.
