The PGA Tour makes its annual trek to central Ohio this week for the Memorial Tournament presented by Nationwide at the peerless and sublime Muirfield Village Golf Club just outside Columbus. The tournament is one of the highlights of the Tour season, as the best players in the world take on and try to conquer the course that Jack (Nicklaus) built.
It has been rebuilt over and over again to make a great track even better.
Muirfield Village Golf Club was ranked as the 15th best course in America in the most recent Golf Digest ratings and its renovation by Nicklaus and his design team that began after the 2020 event was ranked as one of the best projects of 2021. The Golden Bear has long viewed the course as part passion project, part legacy builder.
“My legacy really is here,” Nicklaus said in a press release about the renovation. “This is what the world sees on television. This is what the players see. This is set up for people to come here, to see it and play.”
Muirfield Village
A bit of history
The genesis of Muirfield Village Golf Club and the Memorial Tournament dates to 1966, when, just before the start of that year’s Masters Tournament, Nicklaus confided to one of his good friends, Ivor Young, that he wanted to start an event in Columbus that would be as exceptional as the Masters.
A few months later Young found the densely wooded, rolling tract in what was then rural Dublin that Nicklaus recognized as an area where he once hiked and hunted with his father.
After several years of acquiring property, construction began on the course in mid-1972. And though Nicklaus received some assistance from Pete Dye and land planner Desmond Muirhead, the final product was Nicklaus’ doing.
His refinements through the years have bolstered Muirfield Village Golf Club’s reputation as one of the finest strategic designs in the world.
“It’s a pretty site,” Nicklaus said. “When I saw it, I liked the way it flowed through the valleys, and I knew I wanted to create a ‘gallery’ golf course. The valleys were wide enough to accommodate that goal. I just liked the property.”
A beautiful site
Muirfield Village Golf Club is characterized by engaging elevation changes, immaculate conditions, and a meandering creek around which holes were strategically routed. Deep rough and fully mature trees frame each hole. It is a haven for shot-makers that demands the golfer’s attention and conviction on every stroke but is also quick to reward shots that are properly executed.
The back-nine is laid out on superior terrain and sports excellent risk/reward holes, while the course as a whole is a marvelous test of skill that is highly memorable. All of the par 5s can be reached in two but there is little forgiveness in maneuvering them as water comes into play on the tee and then on the approach shots on three of four.
“When it came to designing the course, it was about finding the best areas,” Nicklaus said. “There were two creeks that came together at one end of the property, which today is where the creeks come down at 11 and 15.
“We had another creek that came down where the second hole is now, coming down from the fifth hole. That creek goes out at the third hole, providing the drainage for the property. I just worked myself back through those valleys.”
Since its opening in 1974, Nicklaus has remodeled every hole at Muirfield Village, some more than once, using the Memorial Tournament as some guidance for adding things or taking things away. In just the past decade he totally changed the par-3 16th and par-4 17th holes and extended the back tee of the par-4 18th to 484 yards, making it one of the most fearsome closing holes on Tour.
As with every great golf course, the putting surfaces at Muirfield Village Golf Club are its last line of defense. They can be very severe, with broad sweeping contours rather than internal contouring, and plenty of hole locations that are just tough as nails. The course’s margin of error is very low, and shots that are misses almost always cost the golfer at least one stroke.
Nicklaus’ most recent renovations refined the course to make it more playable for its everyday membership while adding challenge for the game’s best players. Fairways were made wider in the landing areas where most amateur golfers target while the longest hitters will find their driving corridors narrowed a bit.
The 2020-21 re-do also included the installation of a sub-air system, 163 added yards (making Muirfield Village Golf Club play at more than 7,400 yards) and a change in the turf on the greens from a Bentgrass/Poa Annua hybrid to just Bentgrass.
Every green was increased in size to create more hole locations and chipping areas, and bunkers were also added.
Like a fine wine, Muirfield Village Golf Club gets better with age as it combines challenge, memorability, and architectural intrigue that produces one of the country’s finest tracks.
“What it represents is my total vision as it relates to a golf course, a club, and a tournament,” Nicklaus said. “We have come a long way with it, and it’s a neat thing to have a dream and make it happen.”
Muirfield Village
Public golf options in Columbus area
While you will need to earn your Tour card or wrangle an invite from a member to play Muirfield Village Golf Club, here’s five nearby courses that help define the golf experience in the area:
- The Golf Club of Dublin. This course was designed by Dr. Michael Hurdzan and Dana Fry to emulate the wide-open experience of golf in the British Isles. One of the area’s most awarded public tracks.
- Denison Golf Club. Designed by Golden Age architect Donald Ross and built in 1924, this facility is in the picturesque college town of Granville, about 25 minutes from Columbus. Ross routed the course through naturally rolling wooded terrain. Though the par-71 course is not long by today’s standards (6,559 from the tips) it has plenty of bite.
- Darby Creek Golf Club. Set on 204 naturally rolling acres located in the rural southeast corner of Union County, the course layout blends in with the pristine countryside that surrounds it. It was designed the team of Geoffrey Cornish and Brian Silva and is unique in its design with two distinctively different nine-hole layouts.
- New Albany Links Golf Club. New Albany Links was designed by Barry Safarin. The layout is American modern, with plenty of bunkers and water in play on a number of holes. The greens are undulating and well protected. It’s target golf in every way.
- Safari Golf Club. Take a walk on the wild side on this Hurdzan-designed course that’s owned and operated by the Columbus Zoo and Aquarium. The layout makes its way through a wooded forest adjacent to the zoo proper. Known for being in excellent condition, this course makes the perfect getaway while the rest of the family visits the zoo.
New Albany Links Golf Club