Jack Nicklaus Drew a Redesign Plan for Muirfield's 16th Hole for Jordan Spieth on a Napkin
Jack Nicklaus thought about changing the 16th hole at Muirfield Village for five years before he finally brought a bulldozer onto the property, removing a bunker and adding a pond.
That was before the 2011 Memorial Tournament and since the changes, the par 3 has been a lightning rod for comments and complaints.
The green was reshaped in 2021 to make the tee shot more receptive and then before this year’s Memorial Tournament, Nicklaus created a new tee, right of the old tee and 20 yards longer, to effectively allow players to play more up the green than over the pond into the narrow sliver of a putting surface.
None of those changes have quelled the negative feedback from several players and Nicklaus, who has heard those comments, is now contemplating more changes to make the hole better and inherently fairer.
“My guess is I’ll change the hole,” Nicklaus said on Sunday morning at the recent the Memorial Tournament. “I don’t want guys walking around here saying god what a great 17-hole golf course.”
During the week, the weather conditions, specifically the wind out of the southwest, which was opposite of the prevailing northeast winds, made the hole play much harder and amped up the criticism.
Nicklaus sat down with Jordan Spieth and Rory McIlroy in players dining and asked for their thoughts, explaining his goal to make the golf course the best he can.
“There's nothing wrong with that hole if we have the conditions,” Nicklaus said. “But if we have the wrong conditions, then maybe the hole isn’t good.”
With a scorecard yardage of 220 yards, the 16th hole was the second hardest hole for the week at Muirfield Village with a stroke average of 3.364 or 0.364 shots over par.
Spieth walked into playing dining to search out Nicklaus and express his delight over the course conditions and said he had never seen greens in such fine shape after two days of competition in his career.
It was then that Nicklaus says he told Spieth, "Sit down, I heard you on television saying that universally the players don’t like the 16th hole. So, what don’t you like about it?
“He pictured a 16th hole like Augusta, but not copying it,” Spieth said of their lunch discussion. “He drew it out on a napkin, it was very cool. He's like, if you hit a bad shot, you should make a bogey, but I don't want to see doubles and triples there when you hit a pretty good shot.”
During the week, Nicklaus contemplated a change to the right side of the green that would open up that area.
According to Spieth, it is something that Nicklaus, a self-professed tinkerer, had contemplated doing before this year’s Memorial but wanted to give the new tee a chance.
After a week of contemplation, Nicklaus has decided to move the new back tee even farther right this fall while hoping to allow players to play even more up the green.
Nicklaus told SI that he wasn’t going to be totally reactionary on the change, but instead will take his time.
“I don't like to see it be brutally difficult,” Nicklaus said of the 16th. “We'll adjust 16 next year. I'll do some things on that that will make it a more forgiving hole.”