The Memorial Tournament presented by Nationwide and hosted by Jack Nicklaus is always one of the toughest challenges on the PGA TOUR. There was especially more buzz this week as it was Tiger Woods’ latest appearance before he tees it up at Chambers Bay for the 2015 US Open. Although Tiger is a five-time champion at Muirfield Village Golf Club, he struggled with his game, fighting to make the cut on Friday. He then followed that with his career-worst round, shooting 85 – that resulted in him teeing off as the first group Sunday for the final round, alone. He finished his tournament with a final round 74 before the leader, Justin Rose, even teed off. His tournament total of 302 is his worse 72-hole score ever on the PGA TOUR.
Although Tiger played poorly, there were many golfers in the field on Sunday with a chance to win. Justin Rose went into the final round leading by three shots at 15-under par over Francesco Molinari. Rose definitely didn’t have his A-game, but grinded out an even-par round to stay at 15-under par, enough to go into a playoff with David Lingmerth of Sweden. Francesco Molinari, who played his first ever Memorial Tournament, was in the lead at one point as well until an untimely double-bogey on the 16th hole. Masters Champion Jordan Spieth played well with a final round 65 to finish in a tie for third at 13-under par. He started the day nine shots back, but this fine play will hopefully carry over to Chambers Bay.
Lingmerth shot a 3-under 69 to get to 15-under par. That was almost enough as Justin Rose looked to be in trouble at the 18th hole – after driving his ball into a fairway bunker, he shanked his second shot and was left with a 55 yard chip. He would leave that to a couple of feet for a tap-in par. Rose and Lingmerth would par the first two playoff holes – Lingmerth would then par the third playoff hole to win the tournament, his first on the PGA TOUR. Watch highlights from the tournament in the video above!
Source: PGA Tour
