The conditions at Muirfield Village copied what many other PGA Tour tournaments have done – gone to a US Open style setup. The incredibly long, thick rough proved to be an exceedingly difficult challenge and scoring reflected the penal nature of this year’s tournament.
Fred Couples opened the tournament with an even par 72, good enough for 36th place. A second round 71, that included five birdies, two bogeys and one double, vaulted him all the way up to 11th place.
Fred’s third round, however, would not go so well. A triple bogey at the par 4 7th and a double at the difficult par 4 17th would lead to a 77, dropping Fred all the way back to 36th place again. A final round 75 dropped Fred further down the leaderboard into a tie for 46th place. The 7-over total placed Fred fifteen shots behind winner Kenny Perry.
The gallery from the Memorial can be found here.
All you have to do is look at the statistics and it’s obvious why Freddie struggles to win these days. His short game both bunker saves and putting are his demise. Wouldn’t you think he would work with Harmon or some other instructor to refine these flaws?
Round three of the Memorial is a prime example where Freddie hit 71% of the fairways and 61% of the greens was zero for two in sand saves and had 35 putts. He shot 77 and it could have been 68 at least.