Tim Schmitt – Golfweek
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Five days after winning his first individual title on the PGA Tour, which was his second win following a team victory a month ago, Ben Griffin kept things rolling with a 7-under 65 to kick start his 2025 Memorial Tournament.
At the beginning of play on Friday, Griffin was followed by Collin Morikawa (5 under), Max Homa (4 under), and a host of others at Muirfield Village outside Columbus.
The defending champ at Jack Nicklaus’ tournament is Scottie Scheffler, who’s also coming off winning the PGA Championship. He shot 2 under par in the first round. That was good for a tie for seventh.
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What is the cut at the Memorial?
There will be a cut after today’s round. The Memorial features a 36-hole cut to the Top 50 plus ties as well as any player within 10 strokes of the lead.
The cut line has moved from 4 over par to 5 over par after Cameron Young bogeyed No. 18. The top 50 players plus ties (and anyone within 10 shots of the leader) qualify for the weekend. Young’s bogey, at least for now, will enable notable players such as Justin Thomas, Matt Kuchar, Matt Fitzpatrick, Hideki Matsuyama and Wyndham Clark to compete in the final two rounds.
Who is in danger of missing the cut?
These players are in real danger of missing the cut this weekend:
- Matthieu Pavon (+6) (F)
- J.J. Spaun (+6) (F)
- Sahith Theegala (+7) (F)
- Chris Kirk (+7) (F)
- Christiaan Bezuidenhout (+8) (F)
- Aaron Rai (+9) (F)
- Joe Highsmith (+9) (F)
- Daniel Berger (+9) (F)
- J.T. Poston (+9) (F)
- Brian Harman (+10) (F)
- Byeong Hun An (+11) (F)
- Lucas Glover (+11) (F)
- Cam Davis (+12) (F)
- Brian Campbell (WD)
Scottie Scheffler is at 2 under
How easy is this game? Scottie Scheffler explained his resiliency after a tough double-bogey on No. 10 during Friday’s round.
“If I get up there and make a poor swing because I’m frustrated, that’s going to make me even more frustrated, so I might as well try and make a good swing. It’s really just as simple as that,” he said.
Scheffler is 2 under.
Sam Burns’ caddie gets birthday present: more rest
Sam Burns was looking to get caddie Travis Perkins a little something special for him on his birthday on Friday. He did so by shooting a 65 and getting back into contention at the Memorial, meaning the pair will enjoy a later tee time on Saturday. Burns was four shots off the lead as of 4:30 p.m.
“It’s always fun to try to get him a little extra sleep tomorrow,” Burns said of Perkins. “But, yeah, I think other than the rain the golf course being soft I think helps a lot. Typically this place, especially the greens, get really firm and you have to be really precise, kind of going into the greens where you’re landing in. I think if you drove it well and got in position you could be a little more aggressive, and I think we did a good job of kind of attacking when we could, and then trying to fight for par whenever we were out of position.”
Nick Taylor, Collin Morikawa making moves
Nick Taylor is off to a great start on Friday, going 4 under through the first 13 holes of play to get to the top of the leaderboard at 7 under. Collin Morikawa is also off and running, as he used birdies on two of his first three holes to also get to 7 under.
Justin Rose enjoying strong second day
The 2010 Memorial Tournament winner, now playing in his 16th tournament here, is pacing for the second-best second day of this year’s tournament. After shooting a 78 on the first day, Rose is 6 under par through 15 holes in the second round to climb back to par.
Rose opened the day with a bogey on the first hole but recorded an eagle on the third hole when his 107-yard shot found the hole. Now on the back nine, Rose has notched birdies on five of six holes to improve to 6 under par today, one short of Sam Burns for the best second-round performance so far.
— Columbus Dispatch
Rare three-putt slows Scottie Scheffler’s progress
Scottie Scheffler made the turn at 33 on Friday, and had pulled within two shots of overnight leader Ben Griffin, but Scheffler had a rare three-putt on the 10th hole, posting a double-bogey to drop to 3 under for the tournament.
Michael Kim is happier today
Michael Kim, even par through six holes, already is having a better day than what went down during the first round, when he took a quadruple bogey at the par 3 12th hole, dunking his tee shot into the water then making a mess of his next FIVE shots. He shot 78 for the round. Kim, who has become something of a social media sensation because of his tour insider posts on X, found some respite after his opening round in the company of a couple of canine companions. He also planned to soothe his ills with a clubhouse strawberry Oreo milkshake, which he rated 9.5 out of 10.
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— Columbus Dispatch
Collin Morikawa’s new caddie calls him ‘crazy’
Collin Morikawa won at Muirfield at the 2020 Workday Charity Open and has twice finished second at the Memorial, including last year. On Thursday, he birdied three holes in a four-hole stretch on the front nine and made six birdies in all en route to posting 5-under 67 in the first round, two off the pace set by Ben Griffin. After working through multiple swing thoughts, Morikawa says he’s just flat out crazy, and it didn’t take his new caddie, Joe Greiner, long to reach the same conclusion.
“He’s already called me crazy a lot. And that’s fine. Like, I think golfers are generally crazy. I know I am. I mean, you give me eight weeks off this off-season, you should hear about the amount of things I tried. Just, I mean I had seven different grips, different wraps on my grips, like I was going through it all,” Morikawa said. “You just give me a little too much time and I just go down rabbit holes.”
— Adam Schupak
Will Tiger Woods play Memorial again? We asked Jack
Tiger Woods won Jack Nicklaus’s Memorial Tournament a record five times, but Nicklaus said he doesn’t expect Woods to chase a sixth title at Muirfield Village Golf Club ever again.
“I doubt it,” Nicklaus said on Tuesday. “I don’t think that he’ll be able to walk this place. I’d love to have him playing again.”
Woods isn’t the only player to deal with an Achilles injury recently. Last February, two-time Masters champion Bernhard Langer tore his left Achilles playing pickleball. Three months after the surgery, he returned to PGA Tour Champions but was allowed to use a golf cart, and in December teamed with his son, Jason, to beat Woods and son Charlie at the PNC Championship in a playoff. Nicklaus was more optimistic about Tiger’s chances to play next year on the Champions Tour once he turns 50 in December.
