When Jordan Spieth searched out Jack Nicklaus after witnessing something ‘he’d never seen’ before at the Memorial

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Jordan Spieth is a huge fan of Muirfield Village as a golf course and he has played in every single Memorial Tournament since 2013.

Jack Nicklaus hosts the Memorial and it is one of the biggest tournaments that Jordan Spieth is still yet to win.

Muirfield Village is one of the finest golf courses in the United States and Nicklaus is rightly very proud of his design.

Spieth earned a top-10 finish at The Memorial Tournament this year, as he showed glimmers of his true ability.

However, he was once again outplayed by the imperious world number one, Scottie Scheffler.

Scheffler was victorious at The Memorial this year just like he did in 2024, with winning scores of 10 and eight-under-par.

That proves how difficult the golf course plays in comparison to most other PGA Tour events.

Muirfield Village was actually ranked as the fourth most difficult golf course on Tour last season, behind only Oakmont, Torrey Pines South and Quail Hollow.

Sometimes it seems as though the golf course crosses the line from difficult to unplayable. This year, Michael Kim said he felt like he wouldn’t be able to break 85 at Muirfield Village during the tournament week.

Jordan Spieth urgently searched out Jack Nicklaus at the Memorial Tournament

As mentioned earlier, Nicklaus is hugely proud of what he has created in Dublin, Ohio.

However, that doesn’t mean that he is not open to receiving constructive criticism about his golf course.

The 18-time major champion regularly speaks with players during the week of the tournament about any improvements which may be needed.

And that’s exactly what happened way back in 2023 concerning one hole in particular.

Spieth and Rory McIlroy had met with Nicklaus prior to the start of the tournament in 2023 to discuss the 16th hole and potential ways in which it could be made better.

The three men decided on very small adjustments after Nicklaus said he wanted players who hit poor shots to make bogeys but didn’t want to see double bogeys and triple bogeys made after decent shots.

However, when Spieth made a beeline for Nicklaus during the event two years ago, it actually had nothing to do with the 16th hole at Muirfield Village.

The three-time major champion urgently sought out Nicklaus in the Muirfield Village clubhouse two years ago after finishing his second round of the Memorial, according to SI.

The reason why Spieth wanted to speak with Mr Nicklaus so urgently?

Well, it was to compliment him on the condition of the golf course. According to SI, the 32-year-old Dallas native ‘had never seen greens in such fine shape’ after two days of competition in his career.

Quite the compliment from Spieth.

Perhaps it was no coincidence that the former world number one ended the week at ‘Jack’s Place’ in a tie for fifth.

One player threatened to never play The Memorial again after Jack Nicklaus’ big change

Back in 2016, Nicklaus made a major change at Muirfield.

And one player was so unhappy with the change that he threatened to never come back to play the tournament again.

Nicklaus watched Jim Furyk get up and down from the bunkers at Muirfield far too easily in 2015, so for the 2016 edition of the tournament, he brought wooden rakes with really wide teeth marks into play.

When the bunkers were then raked by the caddies, deep ridges were left in the sand meaning that players faced horrendous lies when their balls rolled into them.

Michael Kim shared how one player wasn’t happy with Nicklaus‘ change one little bit.

He said: “After Thursday’s round, a high profile player at the time (not Tiger), goes to player dining and walks straight to Jack. He says Jack, if you ever do this to the bunkers ever again, I’m NEVER coming back. I spent 20 years perfecting a technique to beat these guys in the bunker and you took that away from me. They never went to it again.“

Kim also went on to clarify that it wasn’t Phil Mickelson who confronted Jack either.

The great thing about Nicklaus is that he is always open to criticism, and that’s not always the case with great sportsmen. Many of them don’t like their egos being bruised.

The 18-time major champion is a different breed to most, though. And the fact that he sat down with Spieth and McIlroy to discuss a potential redesign of the 16th hole at Muirfield tells us all we need to know about him as a man.