Winners and Losers from the 2015 Memorial Tournament
If nothing else, golf fans got their money's worth at the Memorial Tournament.
David Lingmerth and Justin Rose exchanged clutch putts on the 72nd hole of regulation play then had to play three more holes in sudden-death fashion before the Swede finally vanquished the Englishman to capture his first career PGA Tour event. It was the longest playoff in the tournament's 40-year history.
The four-plus rounds of competition provided a generous cadre of winners and losers, and we took a look at both sides of the ledger while compiling a final list.
Click through to take a look at what we came up with, and drop a viewpoint or two of your own in the comments section.
Winner: How Swede It Is
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It was the happiest bout of ignorance David Lingmerth will ever experience.
The 27-year-old Swede, who played college golf at both West Florida and Arkansas, sank a five-foot par putt to defeat Justin Rose on the third hole of sudden-death play—then happily admitted to CBS green-side reporter Peter Kostis that he had no idea what to do once he'd won.
"I can't believe it right now," he said. "I'm so happy. I don't know where to go."
Lingmerth didn't look like a factor for the early part of the round—which began with Rose ahead by three shots—but he quietly played himself into contention on the back nine and sank a clutch putt on the 18th hole to force the two-way extra session. He and Rose exchanged pars while playing the 18th hole two more times to begin the playoff, then won it with a five-foot par on the 10th hole.
He became the sixth player to earn his first PGA Tour win at the Memorial and the first Swedish-born player to win on tour since Henrik Stenson in 2013. It easily surpassed his previous best finish of the season, a tie for 13th at the Arnold Palmer Invitational.
Lingmerth had missed four cuts in six events since and saw his world ranking drop to 212th.
Loser: The Italian Novice
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The Memorial is not a haven for first-time players.
And by the time Sunday ended, that reality had claimed Italian tour rookie Francesco Molinari.
The 32-year-old shot rounds of 68, 67 and 69 on the first three days to get into a final pairing with Justin Rose before finishing two shots out of a playoff involving Rose and Swede David Lingmerth.
It was the best finish in 11 PGA Tour events this season for Molinari, who tied for 10th at the Humana Challenge in January but subsequently missed three cuts in eight events and plunged to 130th on the money list. That placement meant he needed a sponsor's exemption to even play the tournament.
His older brother, Edoardo, had played the event twice—finishing tied for 63rd and missing the cut.
“He told me pretty much what everyone says, that it’s quite generous off the tee but if you miss the fairways you’re going to be in trouble,” Molinari told the Columbus Dispatch's Bill Rabinowitz. “He told me the greens are very fast and slopey—Augusta-like.”
Molinari was three shots behind Rose to begin the final round but briefly held a two-stroke lead as Rose struggled badly on the front nine. He was part of a three-way tie with Rose and Lingmerth heading to the 16th tee then drove into a hazard on the 201-yard par-three hole and took a double-bogey five.
Winner: International Flavors
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Central Ohio. International golf paradise.
Who knew?
After just four foreign-born players had captured the Memorial title between its inception in 1976 and 2003, no fewer than six golfers from outside the United States have since left suburban Columbus with a shiny trophy to declare at customs.
Swedish-born David Lingmerth's third-hole playoff win over Justin Rose on Sunday—the first of his PGA Tour career—came on the heels of a playoff triumph by Japan's Hideki Matsuyama last season.
Ernie Els began turning the tide in an international direction with his four-stroke win in 2004, which was followed by Swede Carl Pettersson in 2006 and South Korea's K.J. Choi a year later.
Rose won the event in 2010, but he failed in a bid to become the first two-time international winner since Greg Norman in 1990 and 1995.
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Loser: The Remnants of Tiger Mania
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Hey, didn’t you used to be Tiger Woods?
OK, the hard truth is that the man who was once favored to win every tournament he entered has been long gone for a long time. He’s nearing 40, has been dogged by injuries and hasn’t inspired the same intimidation in foes since his last major victory—seven years ago this month at the 2008 U.S. Open.
Still, even with that said, it was hard to watch one of the game’s all-time greats shoot the worst round of his professional career (an 85) on Saturday, which dropped him to last place among weekend competitors and left him playing alone Sunday because of an uneven number of players in the field.
Occasional Woods nemesis Dan Jenkins piled on with a Saturday night tweet, congratulating the 14-time major winner on shooting the old man's age—something the writer himself had never done.
An 11-shot improvement got Tiger to 74 to wrap things up on Sunday, but he’s still shot par or better in just three of eight rounds since briefly waking up the echoes at Augusta National on the way to a tie for 17th at the Masters Tournament.
Maybe he’ll tap into the old mojo again in time for this year’s U.S. Open, which begins in 11 days.
Or maybe we should remember what he was and concede once and for all that it’s never going to return.
Winner: Phil Mickelson's Good-Guy Image
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Weekend rounds of 78 and 75 left him only three places ahead of former rival Tiger Woods at the bottom of the leaderboard, but Phil Mickelson more than made up for it in goodwill.
It seems Lefty happened by a lemonade stand in a neighborhood adjacent to the Muirfield Village course on Thursday, stopped by to chug down a $1 glass and promptly left the stand’s sibling hosts—Roland and Elise Van Karsen—with a folded C-note to cover his tab.
“All we were doing was sitting here, and all we saw was this white car drive up, and it was close, and he said ‘Can I have a glass of lemonade?’ and all it took was one little thing for him to give us a good tip,” Roland Van Karsen, six, told the Columbus Dispatch's Holly Zachariah.
But the kids’ mother, Ann, missed a chance to record the meeting for posterity.
“We didn’t take any pictures, we didn’t get any autographs,” she told the Dispatch. “It happened so fast we were kind of stunned. What a great guy, though, right? So generous, and the kids will have a memory like that forever.”
Loser: Hometown Heroes
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When play concluded after Thursday's first round, Columbus native Kyle Reifers was firmly ensconced on the leaderboard after firing a five-under par 67—dead even with eventual winner David Lingmerth.
But by the time the maintenance crew cleaned things up on Friday, the local kid was packing his things.
Reifers followed up his six-birdie, one-bogey performance with a far uglier four-bogey, one-double bogey, zero-birdie second round and found himself two shots on the wrong side of the cut line at 145.
"I hit some bad clubs, didn’t play very well, had some bad breaks,” he told the Columbus Dispatch's Bill Rabinowitz and Shawn Mitchell. “It was about the perfect storm, to be honest with you. It’s pretty disappointing."
It was the ninth missed cut in 20 events this season for the 31-year-old, who has one top-10 finish and three other top 20s.
Two other Central Ohio players, Ben Curtis and Tim Crouch, also failed to make the cut while finishing at 147 and 150, respectively.
Winner: The Jordan Rules
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Close your eyes, and it feels like the mid-1990s all over again.
Back then it was a 20-something Tiger Woods captivating U.S. golf audiences and rejuvenating interest in the game, and these days it's 21-year-old Jordan Spieth performing the same magic.
The Masters champion in a stirring wire-to-wire win two months ago, Spieth was a non-factor at the beginning of Sunday's round before stringing together a seven-under par 65 to give himself the clubhouse lead at 13 under before Justin Rose and David Lingmerth were able to close out for a playoff at 15 under.
Spieth finished in a third-place tie with Francesco Molinari.
Nevertheless, Spieth got props for the final day's best shot from the fringe at the 15th hole, where he chipped from the fringe and watched the ball land just a few feet in front of him before it rolled all the way to the center of the cup. He finished the round with six birdies and an eagle and earned his 12th top-five finish before age 22, lengthening his edge over Woods (seven) and Sergio Garcia (six) with the most since 1970.
"This is one of the better rounds I’ve played in a long time," he told CBS' Peter Kostis after the round. "I figured if I played great golf, I'd shoot five under today. Grabbing a couple extra is nice."
Loser: A Veteran Says Farewell
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He was never in contention and, in fact, didn't make the cut to play the weekend.
So while those realities shade Kenny Perry's 2015 Memorial appearance into the losing column, it's really the PGA Tour that'll feel the absence now that the 54-year-old has played his final event.
Perry debuted as a 26-year-old at the 1987 tournament, won it in 1991 and ultimately racked up 14 tour victories and more than $32 million in purses.
“That just told me I made it, that I can do it,” Perry said after his Friday round, per PGATour.com's Sean Martin. “My dad always said, ‘Until you believe in yourself, you’re never going to make it out here.’ When I won the Memorial, I knew I was going to make it.”
He bogeyed the 18th hole Friday to miss the cut by a single shot and will go forward from here as a full-time player on the Champions Tour.
"When I got my card, I was 26 years old. I had a wife and two kids at the time. And I always told my dad if I could win just one time, I’d have made it,” Perry said. “To be able to survive 30 years out here, I’m very proud of that. I’m tired of getting up early. The Champions Tour, the earliest tee time is usually around 10. That’s nice. I just want to sail away off into the sunset."
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