William McGirt can’t think of a better place to launch his return to the PGA Tour than the site of his greatest moment.
In 2016, McGirt won the Memorial for his only PGA Tour victory, defeating Jon Curran on the second hole of a sudden-death playoff.
“The crazy thing is I’ve never seen it. My parents had it on their DVR but they changed service and lost it,” he said.
But that’s OK because seemingly every memory from that week is not only saved but backed up in McGirt’s memory bank.
“On paper, I’d be the last guy you’d pick to win there. First time I’d ever broken 70 at Muirfield Village was on Friday when I shot 68. Then I go shoot 64 on Saturday and made only one birdie on Sunday and still got into a playoff,” he said. “I remember Jack asking me in the elevator on the way to the volunteer party, he said, ‘64 yesterday, huh?’ I said, ‘Woulda, coulda, shoulda, but I had two three putts. He said, ‘What? I’ve got to make that place harder.’ ”
But in many ways, McGirt’s victory feels like a distant memory. A hip injury has sidelined him for more than 22 months. He hasn’t competed since missing the cut at the 2018 Northern Trust and bowing out of the FedEx Cup Playoffs. Ten days later, he had hip surgery.
McGirt can’t pinpoint a specific shot that caused the injury, but remembers being in pain after the third round of the 2018 Arnold Palmer Invitational.
“It felt like someone had put my hips in a vice and tightened it down,” he said.
He took an injection to play out the string of the season when his doctor told him he couldn’t do any more damage before he went under the knife.
McGirt is a straight shooter and he’ll be the first to tell you about the perks to being home for the past two years, such as teaching both of his kids how to ride bicycles without training wheels and being their Uber driver. But after doing all the hard rehab work, he required a second surgery in August to remove a bone spur nearly twice the size of the original one. That’s when McGirt said he faced the harsh realization that he might never hit a golf ball let alone play competitively again.
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“I knew there was no chance I could go back and play the way I felt,” he said. “It’s been hard to see the light at the end of the tunnel at times.”
McGirt took his son to the Masters – he wanted to see Tiger Woods – and watched Tiger’s victory at the Tour Championship and some of the Ryder Cup, but he couldn’t bring himself to watch The Memorial last year.
“I love that place too much to sit there and watch those guys knowing I want to be there something awful,” he said.
McGirt has 29 starts under his medical exemption and he doesn’t want to burn any of them or take up a spot from a healthy player. His latest efforts at a comeback suffered another setback when he withdrew from two Korn Ferry Tour events in Florida.
“It feels like someone jammed a knife underneath the ball joint in my hip. I don’t know what the deal is. Until I post an 18-hole score I wouldn’t post this story,” he said after playing a practice round at the Korn Ferry Challenge at TPC Sawgrass. Then he spoke his worst fear of all: “Are we back to square one again?”
McGirt made one rehab start, missing the 36-hole cut at the KFT’s Colorado Championship by one stroke. Part of the reason he’s so anxious to return is he knows that at age 41, his window is closing. Playing in his first Korn Ferry Tour event since 2011 was an eye-opening experience.
“I walked up on the range and thought, Who are all these kids? I don’t know 15 people in this field,” McGirt said. “Good gracious, I’m looking out there thinking, ‘Are you old enough to drive yet? It must be nice to be young and flexible. Hope you don’t ever get hurt.’ ”
Here’s the crux of the matter for McGirt as he tries to make one more extended run on Tour: “I’m not getting any younger,” he said. “I need to play really well for the next five years to have any chance at the Champions Tour. The longer I’m out, the less likely that is to happen.”
All McGirt wants is to be able to rotate and find his left side again and have a fighter’s chance to compete. He’ll give it the old college try this week at his happy place. Of heading to Muirfield Village Golf Club this week, he said, “If you can’t fall in love with that place when you drive through the gates, you’ve got problems.”
