The 2025 Memorial Tournament marks the 50th anniversary of the prestigious PGA Tour event. The tournament has that lofty status for two reasons: its host, Jack Nicklaus, and its venue, Muirfield Village Golf Club. But as golf fans are well aware, the two have always been intertwined.
Nicklaus will always be known first and foremost for his jaw-dropping accomplishments as a player, including 18 major championships—20 if you count his two U.S. Amateur titles. But his résumé as a golf course architect is also quite impressive.
Muirfield Village, ranked No. 19 in Golf Digest’s latest America’s 100 Greatest Golf Courses ranking, is his crowning jewel. And the golf legend has known that since its creation.
“I hope this course is to Jack Nicklaus what Augusta National was to Bobby Jones,” Nicklaus told Golf Digest in 1974 of the Dublin, Ohio, track.
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The idea to build the course and host an invite-only tournament had come from a conversation with a friend at the Masters years earlier. And Nicklaus opened up about how the course came to be and his design philosophy in an article by Larry Dennis entitled “The New Course that Jack Built: It’s all downhill,” which ran in the August 1974 issue of the magazine.
“The course is a reflection of what has happened in my life, of what golf means to me,” Nicklaus said. “I guess you’d have to say it’s my mark, or at least closer to it than anything I’ve ever done. I don’t like the word ‘monument,’ but it’s my showplace, what I feel the game of golf should be.”
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The title referred to Nicklaus wanting to create a course with as few uphill shots as possible.
“Golf is a much better game played downhill than uphill,” a 34-year-old Nicklaus said at the time. “It’s more visual and more fun.”
But in addition to being pleasing to members in the newly created Muirfield Village, a 1,600-acre real estate development, Nicklaus also wanted to challenge the best players on the planet.
“I’d be surprised if the pros shoot many 65s,” Nicklaus said. “And 75s and higher won’t surprise me. If a tournament professional plays really well on this course, he will shoot 67 or 68. The course will yield a good round of golf when a good round is played.”
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In an opening day exhibition, Nicklaus shot 66. But his prediction of the course playing tough came true during the first Memorial in 1976 when Roger Maltbie beat Hale Irwin in a playoff after both finished regulation at even par. Nicklaus won the following year at seven under (his first of two Memorial titles), and the winner didn’t get to double digits under par for the first decade of the tournament.
Not surprisingly, Nicklaus put a lot of his own time and effort into this project. But perhaps his most eye-popping comment revolved around the cost of the course: $1.6 million with an additional $1.5 million spent on the clubhouse.
“That makes it probably the most expensive golfing playground ever built,” Dennis writes, “and even Nicklaus admits, ‘We’ve gone a little past practicality.’”
To put that in today’s terms, that course and clubhouse would cost about $20 million. But considering that’s the same amount as the tournament’s purse in 2025 and that the event is still going strong five decades later, it seems like that was money well spent.
Anyway, be sure to check out the rest of the Golf Digest archive and enjoy watching the golf from Muirfield Village this week. And if you’re particularly captivated by one of the course’s downhill shots, just know that Jack would be glad to hear it.
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