As the calendar turns to June, the PGA Tour is making its way to the Midwest and Jack Nicklaus is designing Muirfield Village, the host site for this week’s Memorial Tournament.
This year, the stakes are higher than ever at Memorial, because it’s a custom event with a world-class field and $3.6 million will go to the winner. The champion will be decided in a tournament that did not look the same two years ago.
Let’s go back to 2019, which is when Nicklaus, who Niklaus Companies He has built or renovated more than 400 courses around the world and decided to put the finishing touches on the course he founded in 1974.
Initially, Nicklaus told Chad Mark, Muirfield’s director of ground operations, that he was considering rebuilding the greens. This led to a long drive around the golf course – and more ideas.
At the end of that trip he said, “You know what, I’m not getting any younger.” Mark said. “[He] He started talking about fairway bunkering and side green bunkers and fairway reforestation and tee rebuilds, how that relates to the tour and how that relates to the members. … It will be an opportunity for him to finalize everything he wants to see here forever.”
Work began on the last day of the 2020 anniversary and was completed before the return of the 2021 event.
“I don’t think when we’re done it’s going to be a tougher golf course,” Nicklaus said during construction, “it’s just going to be a better golf course.” “And that’s what I want, I want a better membership golf course.”
And how did it end?
“It’s a different golf course,” Nicklaus said. “A completely different golf course. You’ll see it right away.”
GOLF.com has been involved with Nicklaus and his design team throughout the long renovation project. Check out the video at the top of this article – available only to InsideGOLF members – to go behind the scenes of what the process was like.