2016 Memorial results: William McGirt wins and Rory McIlroy looks for some putting magic

Amid a stacked field at one of the PGA Tour’s biggest events, it’s a name few casual fans would recognize taking home the hardware and the check to match.

William McGirt, a 36-year-old career journeyman in professional golf, held off Dustin Johnson, Rory McIlroy, Matt Kuchar, Patrick Reed and Jason Day on a blustery and sometimes stormy Sunday in Central Ohio before defeating Jon Curran on the second hole of a sudden-death playoff to win the Memorial, his first career PGA Tour victory.

McGirt was set to head to the grueling one-day, 36-hole sectional qualifier for the US Open tomorrow, but his win here should be enough to move him into the Official World Golf Rankings’ Top 50 and secure an exemption to the event. It would be McGirt’s first ever US Open start -- and only his second major championship start ever.

It’s been nine years since McGirt’s last win at any level, which came on the 2007 Tarheel Tour -- something closer to Single-A baseball than the PGA Tour. For that tournament, he took home around $16,000. Now he’ll bring home over $1.5 million for his week’s work, along with the grab bag of other perks that come to first-time winners on Tour.

“It feels like a lifetime ago I won that tournament,” McGirt said, seated next to tournament host Jack Nicklaus. “I don’t have enough fingers to count all the mini-tours. The TarHeel Tour. Hooters Tour. Carolina Mountain Tour. Carolinas Pro Tour. Gateway Tour. We’d drive all day to Monday qualifiers, and if we didn’t make it in, we’d turn around and drive right back, and play a mini-tour event the next day.”

So “Dirt” McGirt may not be the big name you were hoping for at the start of the week, but like Jim Herman and others before him, that doesn’t mean it wasn’t a cool story that unfolded in Columbus.

Here are three other things to take away from the week at Muirfield Village.

Another week, another Rory McIlroy charge on Sunday that comes up a few strokes short.

The golf take du jour this week was all about second-guessing McIlroy’s decision to dump his left-hand-low putting grip to flip back to a more conventional style. And most of the hand-wringing about the choice is somewhat dumb, because it probably doesn’t even matter that much.

Hold on, wait, you’re saying putting doesn’t matter for Rory?

Well, yes and no. Though a few would still cape for Jason Day, you’d get little contention in the media center calling Rory McIlroy the world’s best ballstriker. His length and ability to hit it close alone can allow him to compete for wins on tour on a week to week basis -- he doesn’t have to put the premium on putting a shorter player like Jordan Spieth does. Of course, you can putt okay and contend in a lot of golf tournaments. You probably need to roll a few in to win them.

But it’s probably negligible how gripping the putter really affects how many putts one makes. Anyone who’s done it will tell you the change is more about breeding confidence over the ball than mechanics. There are a number of factors that are tossed into the equation of whether or not a putt drops, how you hold the putter being a minimal part of such. And McIlroy echoed that, downplaying how big of a deal the change was afterward, “I’d be way more comfortable changing my putting grip week to week than I would trying to tinker with my swing or do something with my long game,” he said.

Rory played into the hands of the armchair swing coaches through the opening nine on Sunday but was unable to convert on a number of not-easy-but-makeable birdie putts that could’ve changed the tone of the day at the start. Had a few of those dropped, the echoes of his late back-nine charge with three late birdies before the weather delay would have easily filtered back to the leaders. He was still able to get the putter rolling well enough to post a good enough number to be the clubhouse leader during the delay, but it wasn’t really low enough to scare Kuchar or McGirt ahead of him.

There’s no question McIlroy needs to make more putts than he did on Sunday to win at Oakmont in two weeks -- just how he grips the putter probably plays into that very little.

It’s hard to extrapolate exactly how other Tour courses project to what players will see at Oakmont. If the USGA chooses to be their normal selves with the typical graduated rough, burnt-up greens and otherwise demonic course setup, it will be the toughest test in professional golf. Make no mistake, Jack’s tournament is one of the PGA Tour’s biggest, best and most prestigious events. But it’s not the test of golf that players will see in two weeks.

That said, there’s reason to believe DJ & Phil might be ready to shine at Oakmont. Johnson said he’s feeling more confident with the putter, something that will be massively important if he hopes to put last year’s gaffe on the 72nd hole behind him on Oakmont’s slick greens. As for Mickelson, things seem to be coming back together for him on the course after putting his insider trading penalties behind him. His ballstriking was better than it’s been in a long time, per his own standards. If he improves on this week’s performance on the greens, he could be a hot pick in two weeks, considering he’ll be one in the field who’s as intimately familiar as any with Oakmont’s various quirks.

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“I did all that (preparation) work for the ‘07 Open at Oakmont, and nothing’s really changed. I don’t really have to do that again,” Mickelson said. “I’ve been studying the notes because they’re fairly extensive. I’ll just go out and practice and play and develop a gameplan on how I want to play.”

Both players will head to Memphis for one more tune-up next week before descending on Oakmont.

For fans of golf, the Memorial provides nearly everything one could ask for when the weather cooperates. The field is one of golf’s strongest, ticket and concession prices are more than fair comparatively to other sporting events and the course is pristine. The tournament is important to not just Central Ohio, but to the entire midwest too. After losing regular tour stops in Milwaukee, Detroit and Chicago, the Memorial is one of only three regular tournaments based in the region (the Bridgestone Invitational in Akron and the rotating BMW Championship the others). It’s a great event for viewers at home, too, given many of those same factors.

But the tournament’s become known for weather issues in recent years among players and fans, obviously at no fault of the tournament. This year, those weather issues led to the oddly-delayed CBS broadcast that likely pushed away a few prospective viewers. It’s a shame for the Golden Bear’s tournament, which is as well-run as any on Tour and gets the praise from players and attendees. But Sunday’s finish, thanks to the tape delay mess, was as clunky and anticlimactic as it gets.