PGA Tour pro Michael Kim has revealed one ‘top player’ threatened Jack Nicklaus he would never play the Memorial Tournament again after the Golden Bear once decided to use wooden rakes in the bunkers at Muirfield Village.Â
Kim dropped the incredible story on X, 24 hours before the 2024 edition was due to begin.
According to Kim, Nicklaus was irked after he watched Jim Furyk make an incredible up-and-down on the 15th hole one year whilst he was calling the action.
Nicklaus thought Furyk had absolutely no chance of getting the ball inside 10ft but the American splashed out for a gimme.
“That really annoyed Jack,” Kim wrote.
Nicklaus then decided to use wooden rakes in the bunkers the following year with ‘super wide teeth marks’ and as a consequence golf balls were either perfectly teed up or half plugged.
The concept is called ‘furrowing’.
Kim claimed that all the players in the field ‘obviously hated it’.
And a high-profile player confronted Nicklaus and told him if he ever did that again he wouldn’t be coming back to the Memorial.
Spoiler: the player wasn’t Tiger Woods.
Apparently the Tour pro told Nicklaus: “I spent 20 years perfecting a technique to beat these guys in the bunker and you took that away from me.”
See the full story here:
Nicklaus is back on site this week and he has already dropped some incredible tales.
In his annual news conference, he was asked for his best piece of advice by an aspiring golfer.
Nicklaus, now 84, then told an incredible story about a young Rory McIlroy.
He also spoke of how marriage affected the aforementioned Woods’ career.
