A Historical Day For Tiger Woods At The Memorial

You could not have scripted it better. Tiger Woods tied Jack Nicklaus with 73 PGA Tour wins at Jack’s tournament, The Memorial at Muirfield Village outside of his home town of Columbus, Ohio in Dublin.

Nicklaus began this tournament in 1976 as a tribute to tournament golf selecting an honoree each year. The first year was Bobby Jones; this year it was Tom Watson.

Tiger started the day four strokes behind Spencer Levin who did not realize his first win on the PGA Tour after coming in with a 40 on his final nine.

The dream pairing of Tiger Woods and Rickie Fowler turned into a nightmare for the latter. The young phenom shot 84, his highest score on the PGA Tour by five strokes.

Fowler, in spite of a difficult day, appreciated the front row seat to vintage Woods magic. “He obviously loves being in the moment, and there’s where he kind of gets down, focuses and hits those shots, it was fun to see.”

Tiger’s last round, five-under 67, placed him at nine-under par, two strokes ahead of Rory Sabbatini and Andres Romero.

The shot that will be replayed often is his chip in on the par-3 16th. I think rivals his famous chip-in on 16 at The Masters. “The most unbelievably gutsy shot I’ve ever seen,” Nicklaus said of the Sunday shot.  The fist pump on no. 18 after his birdie was the Tiger of old and may be the Tiger for tomorrow as well.

“To reach 73 wins at age 36 (Nicklaus was 46 when he reached 73), it’s not too shabby. It’s been pretty nice; it’s been a nice run since I’ve turned pro. I’m very proud of what I’ve done so far and I feel like I got a lot of good years ahead of me,” Woods said.

Tiger’s comeback started with his win after an over two year dry spell when he earned victory at Arnold Palmer’s Invitational. He has reached the top again at Jack Nicklaus’ Memorial Tournament. It is only fitting that these two golf legends would be a part of bringing Tiger back as the favorite at the U.S. Open at The Olympic Club in San Francisco.

Golf has a way of making special things happen that you could never make up. We saw another chapter Sunday.