DUBLIN, Ohio (AP) — Jack Nicklaus never said he wanted the Memorial Tournament to be the “Masters of the North" when it began 50 years ago. The best sales pitch was to let others do the talking.
It never really came to that over the years, anyway, except it was clear Nicklaus found inspiration from the Masters, the major he won a record six times. It wasn't about Muirfield Village trying to replicate Augusta National. It was more about the tournament experience unlike any other in the non-major division.
Never mind the caddies in white coverall tops or sandwiches in a green wrapper and coffee in green cups. His emphasis outside the ropes was on players being treated in such a way the Memorial stood out from other PGA Tour events.
But it's getting harder to stand out in this era of big money and players getting pampered more than Nicklaus or anyone else could have imagined 50 years ago.
The $20 million purse at the Memorial is the same size as nine other tournaments, and that doesn't include The Players Championship ($25 million), the majors or the Tour Championship, where the $40 million bonus is now official money.
Nicklaus believes the tour is healthier than ever. He just doesn't agree with a plan to have two tracks — the top one filled with some 16 such signature events blended in with the four majors, The Players and the postseason, crammed into about seven months of the calendar.
“I don't want to comment on the tour's schedule because I'm not exactly in favor of what they're doing right now," Nicklaus said, showing his unique ability to comment after not commenting.
He has yet to visit with Brian Rolapp, the PGA Tour's new CEO who has been preaching simplicity and scarcity, which has simply scared those who believe the more tournaments the merrier. Without details, it's a little early to start worrying.
Rolapp and Commissioner Jay Monahan, the golf whisperer for the former NFL executive replacing him, are to be at the Memorial on Wednesday. Nicklaus plans to meet with them to at least try to understand what's going on and why.
“I hate to see tournaments bunched too much together with too many big tournaments too close together,” Nicklaus said. “That's a problem, I think. And I think that's going to be a problem for the tour in the future.”
It already has shown to be the case. The tour inserted a new signature event at Trump Doral between another signature event and a major championship. Scottie Scheffler didn't play one of the signature events. Rory McIlroy and Xander Schauffele bailed from the other.
That's been fixed for 2027 without really solving anything. Doral moves back to the Florida swing, but it's still part of a five-week stretch that features three signature events and The Players Championship. The other is the Cognizant Classic in The Palm Beaches.
The Nicklaus Children's Health Care Foundation is the charity recipient of Cognizant, so the Golden Bear knows all about its spot on the schedule.
“What chance does that tournament have?” he said.
And then his attention turned toward the players and how they can be expected to play so many big tournaments in such a short amount of time, all while trying to be at their best for the four majors that define careers.
“I look at it from the way I was as a player,” Nicklaus said. "I could play a couple weeks in a row, maybe three weeks in a row, but I needed some time off to be able to recharge the batteries. And I think everybody needs to recharge their batteries. So to jam it all in in one period of time, and then leave the rest of the year open, I think it’s tough.
“I don't think it's a problem yet,” he said. “But I think it will be if we don't address it.”
Nicklaus is 86, still plugged into the game to give McIlroy sage advice going into the Masters ("No effing double bogeys") and aware of Scheffler having a run of three straight runner-up finishes a few months ago.
For all he does in the game, he remains a player first.
That's how he thought when he created the Memorial. A great tournament starts with a great golf course in pristine condition. The facilities should be superb, starting with the practice areas, convenience and a grill room that feels like a good place to hang instead of just eat.
Hale Irwin said in 1976, "For a first-time tournament, none can even come close to this one. If they didn’t change a thing it would have to be one the great tournaments we play in. But it is going to get better. I don’t know how, but it will.”
Scheduling is a big part, too. The Memorial in May in 1976 — and for the next four decades— filled the calendar between the Masters in April and the U.S. Open in June.
But now the PGA Championship is in May, moving away from its longtime August date to clear the way for the FedEx Cup postseason. The Memorial now starts 18 days after the PGA Championship, and it ends 11 days before the start of the U.S. Open.
There's a lot going on. Memorial is still the tournament Jack built. It still means something. But it now feels like another stop on a long and lucrative road. It's hard to see how a revamped schedule is going to change that.
On The Fringe analyzes the biggest topics in golf during the season. AP golf: https://apnews.com/hub/golf
FILE - In this photo taken Wednesday, May 22, 2013, the 18th fairway of the renovated clubhouse and new clocktower are visible at Muirfield Village Golf Club in Dublin, Ohio. (AP Photo/Jay LaPrete, File)
FILE - Jack Nicklaus speaks ahead of the Memorial golf tournament at Muirfield Village Golf Club in Dublin, Ohio, Tuesday, June 1, 2021. (AP Photo/Doug Ferguson, File)
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Iran stopped communicating with mediators about extending a ceasefire in the war with the U.S. and Israel, two semiofficial Iranian news agencies reported Tuesday, but President Donald Trump disputed the claim and said talks were continuing.
The reports by the Fars and Tasnim news agencies, both believed to be close to Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard, came as tensions flared in Israel’s separate but related fight against the Iranian-backed militia Hezbollah in Lebanon.
A regional official involved in the mediation, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss the talks, told The Associated Press that Iran had not communicated at all on Tuesday after saying that a ceasefire needed to be enforced in Lebanon for negotiations to continue.
In other developments, the U.S. military said it fired a missile to halt another oil tanker trying to reach an Iranian port in violation of the American blockade. It was the seventh ship stopped by the military while trying to run the blockade, U.S. Central Command said in a social media post.
The Botswana-flagged merchant vessel M/T Lexie was stopped by an aircraft firing a Hellfire missile into its engine room after the crew ignored repeated warnings over 24 hours, the post said.
Trump called reports of a cessation in talks “false and erroneous.”
“The conversations between us have been going on continuously, including four days ago, three days ago, two days ago, one day ago and today,” Trump said in a social media post. "Where they lead, one never knows, but as I told Iran, ‘It’s time, one way or another, for you to make a Deal."
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio did not address the reported cutoff in communications as he testified at a congressional hearing in Washington. Instead, he sounded an optimistic note about the nuclear dimension of the negotiations, while cautioning that there’s no guarantee of reaching “a deal that’s acceptable.”
Iran has been trying to increase pressure on Trump over negotiations on the Iran war ceasefire and loosening the Islamic Republic's chokehold on the Strait of Hormuz and the oil, gas and other commodities that normally pass through it. Trump then could potentially push Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to halt or slow the advance of his forces, which have moved deeper into Lebanon than at any time in over a quarter of a century.
The conflicts have increasingly become conjoined, as Iran insists that any potential truce in the war there must also quell the fighting in Lebanon.
Israel and the U.S. maintain the fighting in Lebanon is separate from the Iran war talks.
Meanwhile, year-on-year inflation in Iran reached a level in May unseen since World War II, underlining the economic pain average Iranians are facing. While the U.S. is eager to ease the Islamic Republic's grip on the strait — through which a fifth of all traded oil and natural gas passed in peacetime — Iran faces economic challenges as its oil-backed economy remains under a U.S. naval blockade.
Economic pressure touched off nationwide protests in Iran in 2017 into 2018, when rising food prices sparked demonstrations that killed over 20 people and saw hundreds arrested. The next year, an increase in government-subsidized gasoline prices caused protests that saw over 300 people reportedly killed.
Then came the protests over the collapsing value of Iran's currency, the rial, at the start of this year. They were the most intense demonstrations to shake the Islamic Republic since its 1979 revolution and the chaotic years that followed. Iran's theocracy met January's protests with a crackdown on demonstrators in January that killed over 7,000 people, according to activists' estimates.
Now, even as hard-liners hold gun-handling workshops and organize marriages under the shadow of a ballistic missile to bolster spirits, experts note there could be new demonstrations if people find themselves priced out of feeding their families.
“I have no doubt that if Trump leaves (Iran without a formal peace deal) ... most probably, we will see something like January by the end of summer because of the economic and social situations," analyst Mohsen Jalilvand said in a video published by Iran's Fararu news website.
Iran's Central Bank said the consumer price index, which measures a basket of goods and services, reached 77.2% in May compared with the year before. The rate is 8.5% higher than in April, the bank added. Inflation in daily and general needs — like medicine, taxi fares, tobacco and communication fees — rose 113.8% from the year before.
A private economic think tank in Iran, the Bamdad Institute of Economic Studies, described the current figures as “an unprecedented rate since World War II.” Iran’s Central Bank did not acknowledge the significance of the figures.
The previous record came in 1942. During the war, the British and Soviets invaded Iran and took over its railway, disrupting food supplies. The lack of food, worsened by a poor harvest, sparked hyperinflation and a famine. Hunger and a typhus outbreak killed many.
Airstrikes this year have greatly damaged Iran's businesses and its oil industry, Meanwhile, the U.S. blockade has been targeting Iranian crude oil shipments trying to reach the international market, a key source of hard revenue. Tax revenues have been depressed by businesses struggling even after the fighting paused.
The rial, which traded at 32,000 to $1 in 2015, now trades at over 1.7 million to $1.
“We will definitely have higher prices," Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian warned in May. "We are fighting, and we must accept this hardship.”
Tehran-based economist Saeed Leilaz, speaking to the AP, warned that annual inflation in Iran could reach 80%.
"Iran’s society cannot tolerate above 25%” annual inflation, he said.
Karimi reported from Tehran, Iran. Magdy reported from Cairo. Associated Press writers Jennifer Peltz in New York and Aamer Madhani in Washington contributed to this report.
Smoke rises from an Israeli airstrike that hit Qlaileh village, as it seen from the southern port city of Tyre, Lebanon, Tuesday, June 2, 2026. (AP Photo/Mohammed Zaatari)
A destroyed building that was hit in an Israeli airstrike is seen through a shattered window of the Jabal Amel Hospital, in the southern port city of Tyre, Lebanon, Monday, June 1, 2026. (AP Photo)
A nurse looks through a shattered window of the Jabal Amel Hospital into a destroyed building that was hit Monday in an Israeli airstrike, in the southern port city of Tyre, Lebanon, Tuesday, June 2, 2026. (AP Photo/Mohammed Zaatari)
People gather on paddleboards in shallow water as cargo and service vessels are anchored in the Strait of Hormuz off Bandar Abbas, Iran, Monday, June 1, 2026. (Amirhosein Khorgooi/ISNA via AP)
People walk at Tehran's historic Grand Bazaar, Iran, Monday, June 1, 2026. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)
Pedestrians and vehicles cross an intersection around Tehran's historic Grand Bazaar, Iran, Monday, June 1, 2026. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)
Men sit at the gate of a mosque at Tehran's historic Grand Bazaar, Iran, Monday, June 1, 2026. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)
A woman walks at Tehran's historic Grand Bazaar, Iran, Monday, June 1, 2026. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)
People carry packages at Tehran's historic Grand Bazaar, Iran, Monday, June 1, 2026. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)
