Jack Nicklaus’ shocking revelation for the Memorial Tournament, elevated PGA Tour events

Photo by Patrick Smith/Getty Images

In his press conference on Tuesday at the Memorial Tournament, host Jack Nicklaus made an interesting statement regarding elevated events.

The Memorial tournament at Muirfield Village Golf Club, hosted by Jack Nicklaus, is one of the new eight elevated PGA Tour events. His event could be one that goes to a limited field with no cut in the future.

Nicklaus previously made it known he was not a fan of the no-cuts events. But his tone seems to have changed during his press conference Tuesday.

“I don’t know what they’re going to do or how many we’re going to end up playing,” Nicklaus said. “We really don’t know that. But as far as the cut thing, I sort of — I don’t like it, but I do like it, and I’ll tell you why I mean that.”

“It’s a heck of a lot easier to take care of 70 or 80 players… easier on (the staff) to prepare the golf course in the morning if you have had weather to play at 9 o’clock than 7 o’clock.”

He then hedged his bet and decided to pull back a bit.

“But as I said, there’s two sides to that coin and I think I’m going to leave that to people that are certainly a lot smarter than I am, which would be Jay and those guys,” Nicklaus said.

The Memorial is one event that attracts the top players since it’s two weeks before a major championship and already has a bigger purse than a regular PGA Tour event.

Now that the event is one of the elevated tournaments, the purse is up to $20 million. That is a $12 million increase from years past.

Nicklaus said previously that he wanted more than 70 players because they wanted the fans to cover the golf course all day, per Sports Illustrated’s Bob Harig. With a smaller field, that would be harder to do. However, PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan made it clear that no-cut events are part of the plan going forward.

Seeing Nicklaus slightly change his outlook on this no-cut topic seems out of character. However, it appears he is leaving it up to the PGA to make that call.