Tiger Woods teed it up at the Memorial Tournament Pro-Am with Peyton Manning on Wednesday, adding an extra layer of GOAT to Jack Nicklaus’s event.
Tiger Woods makes headlines any time he tees it up, but it isn’t often that a pro-am pairing gets top billing. Of course, most pro-am partners don’t have two Super Bowl rings and five NFL MVP awards. Peyton Manning does, though, so it’s easy to see how this particular round ahead of the Memorial Tournament turned some extra heads.
Peyton Manning, like so many stud athletes with time on their hands in the offseason (or retirement), has been a known golf fanatic for years. He’s played in several high-profile pro-am events, including Quail Hollow, Pebble Beach, and right here at Muirfield Village. Manning and Tiger also go back a long way, and this is the second consecutive year they’ve played the pro-am together.
While Manning is an avid golfer…well, nobody ever accused him of following John Smoltz and chasing a more serious second career. ESPN’s Michael Collins (a vital golf Twitter follow, by the way), said the former QB was playing “army golf…left, right, left, right”. However, he did make a birdie to close out the round, so there’s that.
https://twitter.com/PGATOUR/status/1133783813429944320
Following the debacle of a missed cut effort at the PGA Championship, Tiger Woods looked rested, happy and ready to chase his 82nd career TOUR win at Muirfield. He took some time to catch up with Jack Nicklaus and his wife, Barbara, reflecting on Woods’s monumental victory at this year’s Masters.
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As arguably the two best to ever play the game of golf – a debate for another day – it was a touching moment between friends. Seeing Tiger and Jack together never gets old, and it only seems right to appreciate the heck out of it for as long as we can.
When it came to the actual round, Woods was as steady as you’d expect a five-time winner of the Memorial Tournament to be. He was hitting fairways left and right, and narrowly missed an ace on the par-3 4th hole. He’s dialed in, and while he might not top everybody’s lists of favorites this week, I don’t see how you could like anybody more at Muirfield.
Peyton Manning used to call “TIGER” at the line of scrimmage to indicate a snap count of one – Woods’s world ranking for basically the entirety of Manning’s career with the Colts. Tiger’s back in the top five for the first time since 2014 this week…maybe a little bit of time with an ultra-competitive friend will stoke the fire just a little more today.
Literally the only thing that would have made today’s pro-am pairing any better would have been to see Jack himself take a few cuts out there. As it was, fans just had to settle for a superstar pairing of two of the best ever to play their respective sports. I’m sure they’ll get by.