The wind huffed and puffed and blew some golfers right out of the field at the 2024 Memorial Tournament. Big names, too. Muirfield Village Golf Club is never a piece of cake but even players at or near the top of the leaderboard used words like, “tough,” “difficult,” and “hard” to describe the course that Jack Nicklaus built near his hometown in Dublin, Ohio.
Major winners, pros ranked in the top 10 in the world and fan favorites failed to make the cut at one of three signature events with a 36-hole cut on the PGA Tour. It took 4-over 148 for the 51 pros and one amateur to advance to play the weekend with the 73-man field cut to the low 50 and ties and any other players within 10 strokes of the lead after two rounds. That 36-hole aggregate is the highest cut relative to par in a non-major on Tour this season.
Here’s a closer look at those who were sent home packing.
Jordan Spieth
![Jordan Spieth]()
Spieth missed the cut for just the second time in 12 career starts at the Memorial. It’s his fifth missed cut in 15 starts. (Four start had no cut and he also has a DQ.) It was a strange statistical week for the three-time major champ. He ranked first in Strokes Gained: Off the Tee but dead last in SG: Around the Green. He was just 7 of 17 in scrambling. On Friday he started with a double bogey at the first and rounds of 74-75 sent him packing and with the weekend off ahead of the U.S. Open next week.
Ben Griffin and Jake Knapp
![Ben Griffin and Jake Knapp]()
Griffin was planning to have eye surgery this week before he finished second at the RBC Canadian Open and got into the field through the AON Swing 5. Griffin shot 76-73 to miss the cut for the second straight year at the Memorial. It was his sixth missed cut in 20 events this season. Griffin struggled on the green. He ranked 69th in SG: Putting, losing more than four strokes to the field on the green.
Wyndham Clark
![Wyndham Clark]()
One week before his U.S. Open title defense, Clark shot 77-72 to miss the cut. It marked his second straight missed cut and third in his last five starts. Clark’s putter was cold on Thursday as he ranked T-66 in SG: putting. On Friday, he made a double at the par-5 15th and a bogey at No. 6 to fall on the wrong side of the cut line.
Matthieu Pavon
![Matthieu Pavon]()
Pavon, the winner of the Farmers Insurance Open, has tailed off of late. He doesn’t have a top-10 finish since February and missed his second straight cut. The Frenchman, who entered the week No. 12 in the FedEx Cup, tripled 15 on Thursday en route to 77 and made bookend doubles on the back nine, his first nine on Friday, and could do no better than six straight pars to miss the cut by one.
Patrick Cantlay
![Patrick Cantlay]()
The two-time Memorial champion was the biggest surprise to miss the cut. It’s his first missed cut in eight career starts at Jack’s Place. It also marked his first missed cut this season in 13 starts. Cantlay shot 75-76. He made five birdies on Friday but still signed for 76. He struggled around the green on Thursday, and ranked last in the field in SG: Off the Tee on Friday, losing more than 4 strokes to the field.
Justin Rose
![Justin Rose]()
The site of Rose’s maiden win in 2010 was not so kind this time as he shot 80-73. He tripled 18 on Thursday and managed just one birdie to shoot 80. He made three birdies on Friday but a double and two bogeys added up to 73. Rose ranked last in SG: Off the Tee, SG: Tee to Green and SG: Approach the Green (as well as proximity). It was Rose’s first missed cut since the Masters in April. Rose, who has a terrific record at Jack’s Place, missed the cut at the Memorial for the second straight year.
Rickie Fowler
![Rickie Fowler]()
Another forgettable week for Fowler. He went out in 45 on Friday and shot 82 to finish dead last at 10-over 154. On Friday, he was 8 over on his first seven holes. He made six bogeys and three doubles in all. When he made back-to-back birdies at 15 and 16, the commentator on PGA Tour Live summed it up as “whip cream on mud.” Fowler twice has been runner-up at the Memorial and had finished in the top 15 in five of his last seven appearances. This season he is ranked 108th in the FedEx Cup and has just one top-25 finish to his credit.
