Jack Nicklaus has suggested what impressed him most about J.T. Poston’s performance at the Memorial Tournament after the 33-year-old secured the biggest victory of his career at Muirfield Village.
Heading into the final round, it was difficult to see anyone being able to stop Poston winning for a fourth time on the PGA Tour.
He boasted a four-shot lead with 18 holes to play after backing up an amazing performance on Friday with a superb third round.
Ultimately, he made it a lot tougher than he would have wanted to. Poston needed to make a birdie on the 72nd hole just to secure his place in a playoff with Ryan Gerard.
Jack Nicklaus issues his verdict on J.T. Poston’s performance at the Memorial Tournament
He had been three over par after 13 holes of the final round. However, three birdies in his final five holes ensured that he joined Gerard at the top of the leaderboard again.
And on the second playoff hole, Poston was able to make the par to secure the victory.
Speaking in the press conference after, Jack Nicklaus shared what he noticed about Poston’s performance at Muirfield Village.
“Not a bad score, particularly when you need it. I thought watching today, of course, I did TV in the tower, so I watched J.T. play a lot of golf today and saw a lot of golf the previous days. The thing that impressed me most about him is the tempo of his golf swing and rhythm never changed. I think that, to me, it looked like you worked on that very hard,” he said.
“It was pretty obvious to me that he was trying to keep the same pace. And I said, when somebody does that and particularly under pressure, when he had to, and to see that in the second shot he played into 18, both times were fantastic shots. So it’s just not easy to do what he did.”
Nicklaus reflects on how difficult Muirfield Village played
Muirfield Village provided a test worthy of a major championship this past week. Great shots were rewarded, while players were often forced to take their medicine if they made a glaring mistake.
Poston seemed to be playing a different course with his score on Friday. He posted the only score of 65 over the first three rounds.
Nicklaus admitted that the course may have been too harsh at times in the early stages. However, he suggested that only made Poston’s performance all the more impressive.
“The first day, you know, bordered on a hard day to play, and the second day a very, very difficult, and of course, J.T. just ran away from the field with that 65. It looked like nobody was going to catch him. And he didn’t fall back. It’s tough leading on this golf course out here,” he said.
“And then we had what happened yesterday. He had to play 30 holes to finish up today. You know, to keep that and then all of a sudden lose his lead and then be strong enough to come back and do it again. You did it a couple times today, and that was pretty special. So very happy for him, very proud of him. I told him, I said, You’re now approaching the prime of your career.”
Poston’s victory came largely out of nowhere. He had not registered a top 10 on the PGA Tour this season before winning at Jack’s Place.
In fact, it was his first top 20 finish of the year. So it should come as no surprise that Nicklaus believes that this win could be a springboard for him.
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