A familiar voice rang out as Jack and Barbara Nicklaus wheeled their golf cart past the 17th tee Wednesday at Muirfield Village Golf Club.
“Love No. 16,” Matt Kuchar yelled from No. 17 tee.
Nicklaus waved thanks and kept driving, presumably satisfied that at least one PGA Tour player was giving his redesign of the maligned par 3 a thumb’s-up.
Not all players were as enthusiastic with their praise.
“It’s better than it was. Put it that way,” said Jordan Spieth, one of several players who met with Nicklaus after the 2023 Memorial Tournament to share their misgivings about the hole at Muirfield Village, which ranks as the No. 1 private course in Ohio.
If Nicklaus was looking for a universal ringing endorsement of his changes, well, professional golfers seldom are 100 percent thrilled when confronted with a challenging hole.
Memorial: Best merchandise | Leaderboard | Photos
And No. 16 is dastardly, forcing right-handed players to draw the ball – lefties must fade it – 218 yards into a narrow green with water on the left and a bunker back right. It has undergone several transformations through the years, but none has satisfied everyone.
No hole in the 49-year history of the Memorial Tournament has been criticized by players like the 16th, which took heat in the early days of the event when George Archer complained that no par 3 should be longer than 200 yards.
The complaints reached another level last year when several players took dead aim at the hole.
“It’s a stupid hole,” Westerville resident Jason Day said, echoing the sentiments of many.
Nicklaus took the feedback to heart, changing the hole by moving the tee about 30 yards to the right, which took more of the greenside pond out of play. More significantly, he removed a bunker just to the right of the green, replacing it with a grassy slope.
What hasn’t changed is the firmness of the green, which is difficult to hold when tee shots land past the first 20 feet. That is after Nicklaus reshaped the putting surface in 2021 to help keep balls from bouncing off the green even on good shots.
“I’ve always really liked the hole,” Sahith Theegala said, before shooting holes in it. “But there does come a point where you’re hitting a shot and you feel you have no chance of holding the green, whether you hit a good shot or a bad shot, there needs to be a change made. I’ve landed a few balls like four paces on, in the middle of the green, and they went over the back of the green.”
The recent alterations Nicklaus made won’t change that, Theegala said.
“But because the angle changed if you hit a draw in there you can land it on the green and get one close, whereas before the angle was too straight on to be able to do that,” he said. “You’re going to see some guys hit some pretty big draws into the hole, taking less club, just because that bailout area front right is pretty easy now. Before, you pretty much chalk it up to a 4 and move on. It’s easier and a better hole now.”
Collin Morikawa explained that moving the tee actually has less impact than Nicklaus removing the front-right bunker.
“The bunker was never bad, but it’s not like you wanted to be in it,” he said. “The little runoff on the side isn’t as drastic as I thought it would be, so you could actually putt it or chip it across the green. It’s still a tough tee shot, don’t get me wrong. You’re still hitting 7-iron, 6-iron, 5-iron, depending on the wind, to a small, narrow green that doesn’t have a lot of depth.”
Xander Schauffele agreed with Morikawa that removing the bunker makes the 16th more gettable.
“It’s more fair now,” he said. “Taking that bunker out allows you to be as defensive as you would like, without sort of laying up with a 50-yard pitch shot. You’re going to see a lot of balls end up in that little area, especially those front two pins.”
