Memorial Tournament

The Memorial Tournament is a PGA Tour golf tournament, founded 40 years ago in 1976 by Jack Nicklaus. It is played on a Nicklaus-designed course at Muirfield Village Golf Club in Dublin, Ohio, a suburb north of his home town of Columbus. The golf course passes through a large neighborhood called Muirfield Village. There is a statue along Muirfield Drive of Nicklaus teaching a young child how to golf.

As a restricted field event on the PGA Tour, only the first 75 players on the previous year's money list are guaranteed invitations.

One of the main features of the tournament is a yearly induction ceremony honoring past golfers. A plaque for each honoree is installed near the clubhouse at Muirfield. Nicklaus himself was the honoree in 2000.

Vision

Columbus (Upper Arlington) is where Nicklaus was born and raised, learned the game of golf, went to college, and where he started his own family. It was Nicklaus' vision to create a golf club that embodied his personal and professional life and to create a golf tournament that would long represent his passion for tournament golf, and would give back to a community that has embraced him and the game. This vision was fulfilled in May 1976 with the first Memorial Tournament, two years to the day after the course opened at Muirfield Village. The par-72 course was set at 7,072 yards (6,467 m), a considerable length for the mid-1970s.