DUBLIN, Ohio – Tiger Woods makes a swing during the Final Round of the 2012 Memorial Tournament at Muirfield Village Golf Club. | Getty Images
The Memorial Tournament should be one of three events that the PGA Tour elevates annually to pay tribute to the Golden Bear, among other reasons.
Last August, the PGA Tour changed its schedule to counter the Saudi-backed LIV Golf tour.
In doing so, commissioner Jay Monahan revealed that the 2022-23 schedule would include “designated events,” meaning $20 million purses and the top Tour players needing to play those tournaments.
Players could skip out on one event for whatever reason, but the PGA Tour would impose fines if they missed another.
Rory McIlroy suffered this fate when he withdrew from the RBC Heritage, a designated event for 2023. This marked his second missed designated event of the season, so the tour fined him $3 million for skipping out on Harbour Town, which hosts this tournament every year. This South Carolina tournament usually occurs the week after The Masters.
So along with the RBC Heritage, the following tournaments achieved designated status in 2023:
Phoenix Open at TPC Scottsdale
Genesis Invitational at Riviera Country Club
Arnold Palmer Invitational at Bay Hill Club & Lodge
WGC-Dell Technologies Match Play
Wells Fargo Championship at Quail Hollow Club
The Memorial Tournament at Muirfield Village Golf Club
Travelers Championship at TPC River Highlands
I believe three of these tournaments should remain designated every year while the other five rotate in and out.
The Genesis Invitational, hosted by Tiger Woods; the Arnold Palmer Invitational, hosted by Palmer and his family; and the Memorial Tournament, hosted by Jack Nicklaus, should all remain elevated permanently.
Make these three tournaments stalwarts on the schedule, just as Tiger, Arnie, and Jack are stalwarts of the game and comprise the triumvirate of golf.
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AUGUSTA, Ga. — Arnold Palmer, Jack Nicklaus, and Tiger Woods (left to right) during Friday play at the Masters on April 11, 1996.
Palmer and Nicklaus made considerable strides to establish what the PGA Tour is today in the late 1960s, while Woods brought the game to extraordinary heights in the late 1990’s and early-21st century.
Woods continues to impact the game significantly, as he led a players-only meeting last August to shape the future direction of the PGA Tour.
These three men also have 40 major victories among them.
Thus, Monahan and the PGA Tour should honor Nicklaus, Palmer, and Woods by elevating their tournaments annually.
Riviera Country Club, which hosts Woods’ tournament in February, is one of the best courses in the country. It has an iconic layout, sits in America’s second-largest city, and the Southern California weather is never an issue.
Since it takes place in mid-February, the Genesis Invitational can serve as the marquee event of the PGA Tour’s annual west coast swing for years to come.
Two weeks following the Genesis Invitational, Bay Hill Club and Lodge would host the second permanently fixtured event. The Arnold Palmer Invitational would become the staple of the PGA Tour’s Florida swing in early March. Like Riviera, Bay Hill is another terrific layout that continually produces great championships and would welcome the world’s best each year to honor the late King.
It also helps that dozens of tour players reside in Florida; some of whom live in Orlando, where Bay Hill is located.
Moreover, these two tournaments help golfers and fans prepare for the sport’s pinnacle: the Masters Tournament in early April.
Later in the spring, as the calendar flips from May to June, the golfing world descends upon central Ohio, where the Golden Bear hosts the Memorial Tournament at Muirfield Village, the course he built.
Woods won the Memorial a record five times, as many other notables have had the good fortune of shaking Nicklaus’ hand as the winner.
Photo by Jamie Squire/Getty Images
DUBLIN, Ohio — Jack Nicklaus congratulates Jon Rahm on the 18th green after Rahm won during the final round of The Memorial Tournament on July 19, 2020 at Muirfield Village Golf Club.
With the PGA Championship taking place in mid-May, and the U.S. Open in mid-June, the Memorial is the perfect tournament sandwiched between the two majors.
Muirfield Village poses a daunting challenge every year with its picturesque holes, gnarly rough, and undulating greens. It has even hosted a Ryder Cup (1987) and a Presidents Cup (2013), something Riviera and Bay Hill cannot claim.
Of course, the television networks play a big role in this too. CBS and NBC would love to draw in as many viewers as possible.
Designated tour events will never draw as much as a major, but if these three tournaments become further cemented as big events on the schedule, they will continue to get more recognition as time goes on.
More recognition leads to more eyeballs, generating more revenue for all involved. And these huge-pursed events need to make money, or they will collapse from within.
Nonetheless, the formula to succeed with the tour’s new schedule exists.
These three tournaments need to be elevated permanently, and they are easy to decipher since they are associated with Arnie, Jack, and Tiger.
So when watching the Memorial this weekend, with the best players on the PGA Tour playing at Muirfield Village, consider this: the world’s best should play at Jack’s place every year.
It all makes too much sense.
