{"id":475269,"date":"2026-06-04T04:23:08","date_gmt":"2026-06-04T04:23:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/475269\/"},"modified":"2026-06-04T04:23:08","modified_gmt":"2026-06-04T04:23:08","slug":"rory-mcilroy-has-been-frustrated-at-memorial-jack-nicklaus-has-solutions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/475269\/","title":{"rendered":"Rory McIlroy has been \u2018frustrated’ at Memorial. Jack Nicklaus has solutions"},"content":{"rendered":"

In 13 career appearances at Big Jack\u2019s Memorial Tournament<\/a>, Rory McIlroy has five top-10 finishes and another four top-20s. It\u2019s a record, on one of the game\u2019s splashiest stages, that most players would embrace, but McIlroy is, of course, not most players. He\u2019s a 30-time PGA Tour winner with six major titles and the career Grand Slam. He has arrived at a place where he\u2019s not looking to win just any tournaments but the right kind of tournaments. Majors. National opens. Events hosted by or affiliated with legends. <\/p>\n

\u201cI would say here and Tiger\u2019s event at Riviera, they\u2019re the two that I would love to win,\u201d McIlroy said Wednesday.<\/p>\n

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Tiger\u2019s event is the Genesis Invitational in Los Angeles, where McIlroy has gone winless in 10 attempts. \u201cHere\u201d is this week\u2019s event, the Memorial, at Muirfield Village<\/a> in Ohio, where McIlroy is 0-for-13. \u201cI always thought it would be cool to win here and take that little walk up the hill off the 18th green and shake Jack\u2019s hand,\u201d McIlroy said.<\/p>\n

McIlroy and Nicklaus go back nearly two decades: mentee and mentor, fellow GOATs and South Floridians, occasional lunchmates at the Bear\u2019s Club. During one of those bread-breakings a couple of years back, McIlroy gave Nicklaus a shot-by-shot description of how he planned to attack Augusta National<\/a> at that year\u2019s Masters. \u201cI wouldn\u2019t change a thing,\u201d Nicklaus told him. \u201cI think it\u2019s exactly the way you should play it.\u201d Before this year\u2019s Masters, Nicklaus spotted McIlroy during a range session and offered him more counsel. \u201cI put my hands on his shoulders,\u201d Nicklaus said, \u201cand I said to him, \u2018No effing double bogeys.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

McIlroy did card a couple of doubles, but Nicklaus\u2019s message still was received: Don\u2019t be a dummy out there. Heeding that strategy led McIlroy to his second straight green jacket<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Which brings us back to Muirfield Village. What wisdom has Nicklaus imparted to McIlroy about how to manage Nicklaus\u2019s masterwork?<\/p>\n

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\u201cHe hasn\u2019t asked me,\u201d Nicklaus said Tuesday.<\/p>\n

Reporters did, though \u2014\u00a0specifically, whether Nicklaus had any theories about why McIlroy had not yet triumphed at Muirfield. Nicklaus provided a thoughtful answer.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think that this golf course is a golf course that really requires patience,\u201d he said. \u201cI didn\u2019t design it for big hitters, didn\u2019t design it for short hitters, didn\u2019t design it for the middle. I tried to design it so we could take care of everybody and try to give a fair shake to every kind of player. And when you get that, you can\u2019t just stand up and just whack away at it on every hole.\u201d<\/p>\n

That grip-it-and-rip-it approach is how a younger Nicklaus used to try and slay his own design (unsuccessfully), and it\u2019s not hard to imagine a younger, bolder McIlroy coming into MVGC with the same mentality. In time, though, McIlroy, like Nicklaus, has learned that driver \u2014 at least with the distance he smashes his tee shots \u2014\u00a0is no good at Muirfield. That\u2019s because the fairways pinch his landing zones.<\/p>\n

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\u201cIt\u2019s frustrated me in a way that I feel like my biggest weapon is in some way neutralized here,\u201d McIlroy said. \u201cAnd then I have to play the golf course like most of the other guys in the field.\u201d<\/p>\n

That is, strategically \u2014 identifying the best leaves for the most optimal angles into the greens and then controlling the flight and spin of those approaches. <\/p>\n

The greens are no pushover, either, Nicklaus said, particularly for players who like to zip back their irons (see: most modern Tour pros). \u201cTake 3, 6, 9, 10, 14, 15, 17, and 18,\u201d Nicklaus said. \u201cIf you spin the ball off of those greens, what happens? Not a good result.\u201d <\/p>\n

The alternative? Vary your trajectories, Nicklaus said. That\u2019s what he learned to do, both at Muirfield and another ballpark with which he became synonymous, Augusta National. \u201dI think Augusta\u2019s a trajectory golf course also,\u201d Nicklaus said.<\/p>\n

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McIlroy is a traj maestro. Really, he can do just about anything he wants with a golf ball. At Muirfield, it\u2019s just a matter of committing to the shots that the course demands. If McIlroy can follow that formula, a warm handshake from his Bear\u2019s Club pal might be in his very near future.<\/p>\n

\u201cI would love to see Rory play well here,\u201d Nicklaus said. <\/p>\n

The post Rory McIlroy has been \u2018frustrated’ at Memorial. Jack Nicklaus has solutions<\/a> appeared first on Golf<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In 13 career appearances at Big Jack\u2019s Memorial Tournament, Rory McIlroy has five top-10 finishes and another four…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":475270,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[181551,85,46,220644,220643,183848,105],"class_list":["post-475269","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-augusta-national","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-muirfield-village","tag-nicklaus","tag-rory-mcilroy","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/475269","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=475269"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/475269\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/475270"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=475269"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=475269"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=475269"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}