'The Masters of the north' is still setting high standards

CADDIES ROLE:Muirfield Village is the embodiment of all Jack Nicklaus tried to represent in his professional and personal life, writes COLIN BYRNE

I ARRIVED back in America last Monday on Memorial Day, a national holiday to honour those who have fallen in battle. It is also the name given to Jack Nicklaus’s tournament held in his native Columbus, Ohio. Although there have been plenty of casualties on the Nicklaus-designed Muirfield Village course, the penalties for miss-firing are relatively insignificant in comparison.

The tournament and the course have a shrine dedicated to its own heroes and heroines in the world of golf. Set down below the clubhouse and a little away from the first tee it is a tranquil little haven adorned by resplendent red and white new guinea impatiens and shaded by gentle cream-flowered spiraea bushes which make your ramble around the memorial garden both peaceful, cool and aromatic as you peruse the bronze etchings of the chosen inductees.

The course is more precisely set in Dublin, Ohio. As you leave the highway and cruise up Muirfield Drive towards the course you are reminded of home with names like Tara Hill Avenue and the Athenry shopping complex amid verdant foliage due to a recent excess of rain in the area. You are given plenty of references to home in the city of Dublin, Ohio.

The Memorial Tournament was a leader in the early years. Both the course and its presentation for the event set a new high standard for other events to aspire to. This seems to have been achieved today on the PGA Tour where it is hard to find an inferior event. Nicklaus certainly raised the bar not only in play but also is course preparation.

Muirfield Village is the embodiment of all that Nicklaus tried to represent in his professional and personal life. He has strived to make a better experience for players, fans, volunteers and even caddies. We had a designated area beside the bag room even in the days when we were banished to the outhouses of most regular events. More recently we have been compassionately given a light smock to wear instead of a full boiler suit.

The event has a mini-Masters feel about it with a lot of officials present around the clubhouse, sporting long trousers and shirts and tie at all times in all temperatures. The mercury hit the mid-90s at the weekend in Dublin with high humidity. It must have been extremely hot around the collar for some of these officials maintaining the rather staid old-fashioned shirt and tie tradition. Nicklaus has been heard suggest his event is “the Masters of the north”. Not surprisingly there were a considerable number of green jackets on display too.

The first event was staged in 1976 and the players were treated for the second time in tournament history to a buffet in the clubhouse. A reminder to us bagmen that caddies were not the only ones who have had their status elevated in recent decades.

Muirfield Village, built in 1974, was a testament to how Nicklaus valued good practice facilities in an era when ranges were not exactly an intricate part of golf clubs. An 11-acre semi-circular range was built leading the way for other quality clubs to follow. Nicklaus was the first to include mounding on the course to help spectator viewing. This was adopted by future tour courses to create the stadium effect for the fans.

Like with most of the events on the PGA Tour there is a sense of community at Muirfield Village for the hosting of the tournament. There is an army of volunteers who ease the stress of running the event.

I was greeted every morning at the turn to “caddie parking” by an elderly, lumberjack-shirted gentleman propped on a stool, wearing headphones and very dark wrap-around sun-glasses. He was a cool old dude. He had a wooden chain, a less gaudy version of what Mr T from the A-Team would wear, hanging around his neck. In-between pass checks for the car park he would whittle away at crafting another cherry-wood chain as a way to pass the boredom. Old age in America is not a time to back off and be forgotten; the elderly are given a sense of purpose, particularly at golf events.

The inductee to this year’s Memorial Garden was the very much living, at 54 years of age, Nancy Lopez. She won 51 events including three majors. Next year Tom Watson will be given the honour. The Memorial recognition is not limited to male golfers. Although the majority of inductees are men, Lopez is the 10th woman to be honoured – Glenna Collett Vare was the first woman to be inducted in 1982.

The ceremony of induction for Lopez was held on the practice range on Tuesday afternoon with a full brass band, soldiers displaying a huge Old Glory, with captains and dignitaries sheltering from unseasonable heat in their formal grey blazers under a green awning. The competitors were taking full advantage of Nicklaus’ ground-breaking 11–acre practice range by whacking balls during the ceremony, seemingly oblivious to the traditional reception being conducted beside them.

Memorial Day signifies the start of summer for the nation. In Dublin, Ohio, it marks the time for another golf hero to be immortalised in the Memorial Park amongst the spiraea and impatiens straining this year in the unseasonable heat of early summer.