Top stars come a cropper at Muirfield

TALK about a bonfire of the vanities. All those weeks since the restart when egos have been pumped up with easy layouts on the PGA Tour came to a spectacular end at the Memorial Tournament at Muirfield Village yesterday. Any images the name conjures up of a cosy, rural setting can be swiftly discounted, as tournament host Jack Nicklaus tweaked his masterpiece and asked questions that some of the biggest names didn’t come close to answering. Just to complete the picture, a gusting wind added a further layer of difficulty. ‘I used to love layouts so tough that you knew half the field would beat themselves and could be forgotten about even before they got to the first tee,’ he said. That instruction certainly came through with the final round set-up. Brooks Koepka couldn’t even break 80, and if his troublesome knee was playing up before the start, imagine how it must have felt at the end, with his game in total disarray and his defence of the USPGA Championship a little over a fortnight away. You can always rely on Phil Mickelson to come up with something daft on days like this and when the man with the greatest short game of all time starts hitting putts from 78 yards short of the green, that qualifies. Rory McIlroy’s (above) reign as world No 1 was virtually out of his own hands before teeing off, but he made sure with some crazy antics at the par-five fifth, where he had to hole from 12 feet for a triple-bogey eight. Even Tiger Woods struggled to cope although, to be fair, this was hardly a place for a 44-year-old with a fused back who hasn’t played for five months to shine. Typical Tiger, he kept going to the end, birdieing 16 and 17 before a bogey on 18 saw him four over for the day, and six over in total. The only decision left for him is whether he will play in Memphis the week before the USPGA. At the sharp end, how Nicklaus must have loved the start made by Spaniard Jon Rahm, who began with a four-shot lead, knowing that a win would make him the first Spaniard since Seve Ballesteros more than 30 years ago to be world No 1. Imagine hitting a drive so far down the second hole you have a sand wedge for your approach, but having the humility to play the percentage shot away from the flag, because it was so close to trouble? Rahm showed his growing maturity by doing just that. He was unlucky when play was suspended due to bad weather after four beautifully-played holes that made his coronation appear a formality.