Hovland wins 1st Memorial in playoff
COVER PHOTO: Viktor Hovland gives a fist pump after sinking his par putt on No. 18 during the first hole of a playoff at the 48th annual Memorial Tournament to beat Denny McCarthy. Picture by Sam Fahmi/Columbus Wired.
Viktor Hovland is your 48th winner of the annual Memorial Tournament. And the yearly event created and hosted by Jack Nicklaus at the Muirfield Village Golf Club in Dublin, Ohio didn’t disappoint as it, yet again, went into another playoff for the sixth time in the last nine years. It is Hovland’s first win on Jack’s course and his fourth PGA TOUR victory including the first-ever in the United States.
“Yeah, it's incredible,” he said. “I've won a decent amount of tournaments for only being a pro for four years, however, they have been at low key places, resort courses, and abroad. So it feels really cool to get my first win on the U.S. soil, especially at a tournament like this where this week the golf course is arguably harder than most major championship golf courses we play.”
The 25-year-old native Norwegian beat 30-year-old American Denny McCarthy in a one-hole playoff after coming into the final round at five-under par. Both players were tied and only one stroke off the lead going into Sunday.
The win not only moved Hovland up 10 spots to No. 4 in the FedEx Cup standings but gave him the largest payout any Memorial Tournament winner has ever banked: $3.6 million.
Not even Nicklaus got paid that kind of money winning his own tournament, which he did twice.
Or any other tournament for that matter.
“My largest tournament win on the regular TOUR was the Masters in 1986. $144,000. And then I won, my last tournament I won was the Tradition on Senior Tour and that was $150,000. (But) 3.6 million? You guys are way overpaid,” he said with a laugh.
McCarthy began putting together a low-key yet solid bogey-free round with three birdies on the front. By the time he reached par-3, No. 16, he was 8-under and had a two-stroke lead over both Hovland and Scottie Scheffler, who had already finished his day with a final round, five-under performance.
After a birdie on No. 3, two straight bogeys on Nos. 8 and 9 put Hovland at 4-under and four strokes off the lead.
“I've been in that spot before where that kind of seems to be it for that tournament,” he said.
But he began to grind out a solid back nine with three birdies to one bogey and as he approached par-4, No. 17, he was two strokes off the lead. Then he sank a crucial birdie putt from 27-and-a-half feet to put him 7-under and only one stroke from McCarthy.
“I was really proud of myself for fighting back, making a birdie on 10 and 11,” Hovland said. “Even though I made a bogey on 12, I didn't let that deter me. Birdieing 15 and 17 was awesome.”
Hovland would par No. 18 and wait to see if McCarthy could stand firm.
However, McCarthy did something he hadn’t done all tournament long: bogey the final hole.
After McCarthy landed his third shot from the fairway 23 feet above the hole, he pulled his par putt five feet past the cup and had to settle for the bogey, forcing the playoff.
The two would backtrack to the 18th tee for the extra hole and both had precarious tee shots: McCarthy was in the right rough to the right of the fairway bunker while Hovland was lying in the first-cut rough up the left side but his ball was butting right up against the second-cut.
McCarthy put his second shot just shy of the green but it was short enough that it rolled back down the curtain and sat over 100 yards below the pin. Hovland was dancing with his second shot but still had a ways to go 58 feet below the hole.
McCarthy fired his third onto the green but pulled the string so his fast moving pitch slowed down and stayed pin-high within 12 feet of the cup. Hovland’s birdie putt came up less than seven feet short.
And then the club that’s been nothing but great for McCarthy all week let him down when it mattered most: his par putt caught the left lip of the cup and bounced out two feet to the right. Hovland would sink his par putt and the tournament was over.
An emotional McCarthy said losing the way he did “sucked”.
“I'm heartbroken right now, it really sucks,” the eight-year pro said. “I thought this was going to be the week. It just felt like I got a couple good breaks and I was just making the par putts and just felt like nothing could get in my way today. Yeah, it sucks. It really sucks.”
McCarthy still finished the tournament number one in putting and moved up 21 spots to No. 26 in the FedEx Cup standings and 20 spots to No. 35 in the Official World Golf Rankings.
The check he got for finishing in second place? $2.18 million. That's $20,000 more than what last year’s winner Billy Horschel earned.