J.T. Poston Passes PGA Tour's Preeminent Test at 2026 Memorial

A firm and fiery Muirfield Village played to a 74.13 (+2.13) scoring average on Friday, the most difficult non-major scoring day on the PGA Tour calendar so far this season. In what will go down as one of the best rounds of 2026, J.T. Poston fired a second-round 65, beating the field average by more than nine strokes despite playing in the afternoon, when conditions were at their toughest. Justin Thomas took to social media to commend the round — the lowest score of the day by four shots — writing that Friday was probably the most difficult round he’s ever played on Tour.

Unfortunately, a storm system passed through on Saturday, delaying play and softening the golf course for the remainder of the tournament. Even so, Muirfield Village succeeded in doing what it does as well as any course on Tour: identifying the best players in the world.

Last year’s top three finishers were Scottie Scheffler, Ben Griffin, and Sepp Straka, the three most recent winners on Tour entering that week. This year’s leaderboard similarly featured in-form names and would have done so to an even greater degree had the course dodged heavy rainfall on Saturday. Excluding Poston, three of the other top-six finishers had all won on Tour since late April. Muirfield Village is the Tour’s preeminent ball-striking venue, a golf course that tells players exactly where their games stand, in no uncertain terms. An honest barometer two weeks before the season’s third major championship.

Poston broke slightly from the mold of recent Muirfield winners. He hadn’t been firing on all cylinders leading into the tournament, but his brilliant Friday round gave him the solo lead heading into the weekend. Midway through the final round, it looked as though his wheels might come off, but he rebounded and birdied three of his last five holes to force a playoff with Ryan Gerard. On the second playoff hole, Poston knocked in a three-footer for par and the win after a Gerard three-putt from just outside 50 feet.

With the win, Poston punched tickets to both the U.S. Open and Open Championship, so he can go ahead and cancel his tee time on Golf’s Longest Day.

“I sort of told myself in the playoff that this is my U.S. Open qualifier,” Poston said afterward. “This is my chance to get in. I want to play in the majors. I want to play in the big events. This is a huge boost of confidence for me and my game and knowing that I can compete in those and play in those. Just thrilled to get it done.”

Other odds and ends from another captivating week at Jack’s Place:

“I love it. This is like my favorite thing to do, being in contention to win a golf tournament,” runner-up Ryan Gerard said after a gut-wrenching playoff loss and his third runner-up finish of the season. Week after week, Gerard continues to stripe his irons and find fairways, but drastic improvement on the greens has elevated his game to another level. He has all the makings of a player we should expect to see on Tour for a long time.

In his final start before the U.S. Open, Rory McIlroy (T-12) played…fine. Not great, not bad. His inaccuracy off the tee has been a recurring issue throughout the season, and after the tournament he dove into the mechanics he’s working to fix in his swing.

Also making his final start before Shinnecock, Scottie Scheffler (T-12) was not good by his standards. Through 27 holes, it appeared the two-time defending champion may not even see the weekend. He recovered and steadily climbed the leaderboard throughout the weekend, but he continues to hit uncharacteristically poor shots both off the tee and on approach shots. It is a testament to Scheffler’s greatness that a T-12 finish qualifies as a bad showing, but relative to the level we’ve become conditioned to expect from him over the past couple of years, his current form is a concern with just two more opportunities at notching a major this season.