Deja Vu?
Deja Vu?
Jenkins and McBeth Lead The Memorial Championship

Does this sound familiar? Warm and sunny weather. Val Jenkins leading in the Open Women’s division. Paul McBeth leading in the Open division. If it seems like you’ve read this before, that’s because you have. The 2015 Memorial Championship is starting to sound like another event from earlier this year, the 2015 Aussie Open.
The Open Women’s and Open divisions (A-pool) played at Vista Del Camino on the XL layout today, taking on an 18 hole course with an average hole length of 475’. At first glance, Vista looks to be a birdie-or-die type of course. In reality, it proves itself year after year to be more difficult than its counterpart, Fountain Hills.
It takes significantly longer to play at Vista for starters, with rounds ranging from three and a half to four and a half hours. Playing for that long out in the heat can affect players both physically and mentally, and it shows in the scores that get turned in. What Vista lacks that most courses have plenty of; trees. What Vista has plenty of that most courses lack; an absurd amount of flagged/painted out-of-bounds lines. If you manage to avoid going OB, you still have water hazards on several holes to deal with.
Playing safe, smart golf is what propels many players upwards in the ranks by the end of the round. For instance, in the Open Women’s division, Val Jenkins #17495 managed to gain four strokes over Paige Pierce #29190 on a single hole...with a bogey. Jenkins started the day in the lead by two over Pierce and is now heading into day three with a four stroke cushion.
In the Open division, an all too familiar story has unfolded. Paul McBeth #27523 started the day in 5th place, three strokes off the lead. It’s almost as if he prefers that tournaments start this way, in the last couple of years anyway. Think about it. Can you name a PDGA National Tour or Major where he was at the top of the field after round one?
Paul started the round out uncharacteristically, carding two bogeys and leaving him at one under par through the first six holes. Meanwhile on the lead card, Jeremy Koling #33705 in the same stretch of holes was already five under par.
But, as we’ve seen too many times to count at this point, McBeth went on an incredible run. In the 12 holes that remained, he birdied all but one of them. The one that got away was hole 8 and he never looked back. He finished the round with a 10-hole birdie streak, taking the lead away from Koling with a birdie on the 18th.
Tomorrow the A-pool heads over to Fiesta Lakes. It’s a fairly new course in general, having only been in the ground for a few years now, and it is certainly brand new to The Memorial Championship. It was added to include a different style of golf than what the other two tracks provide. Permanently a nine hole layout on a ball golf course, nine more holes were added to present a unique challenge. It is significantly shorter than the other two courses, but requires a deft touch to avoid the water, putting greens, and sand bunkers that litter the fairways with OB hazards. It will be interesting to see what this course brings to the event.
If you’ve been enjoying the coverage this week, good news! It’s only going to continue. SmashBoxxTV will be live streaming the Open lead card starting at 2:00pm MST and we’ll have live scoring for at least the top two cards in both the Open and Open Women’s divisions once again on PDGALive.com.
For the most up to date information on coverage, follow @PDGA on Twitter or stop by the PDGA Facebook page. Looking for photos? High resolution images from each day can be found on the PDGA Flickr page.
Will the 2015 Memorial Championship end the same way as the 2015 Aussie Open? It's still far too early to tell. Either way, stay tuned for a crazy day at Fiesta Lakes tomorrow!