Ryan Gerard struggled to erase the pain etched on his sweat-soaked face after absorbing a gut-wrenching playoff defeat against J.T. Poston to finish the 2026 Memorial Tournament on June 7 at Muirfield Village Golf Course.
Thanks to storms forcing the suspension of the third round June 6 while he and Poston were on the sixth hole, the two ground through 31 holes plus two more in a playoff forced when each made clutch putts on the 18th green to end the fourth round.
All of that, plus sweltering heat on a difficult course baked in sun, not to mention a tightly-packed leaderboard, made Gerard look like he’d just finished a double shift in a coal mine rather than 33 holes of a golf tournament.
The putt for par that he missed from 5 feet, 9 inches on the second playoff hole, which led to Poston’s win, made it even more draining.
“Yeah, I’m tired,” Gerard said. “I think that’s an obvious one. There’s a lot of stress out on this golf course. There’s not a lot of golf shots that you can kind of breathe [easy]. There’s a lot of water, a lot of tight shots, a lot of angles [and] a lot of dicey putts. It just kind of wears on you mentally.”
The Memorial Tournament’s runner-up purse of $2.2 million should take some of the sting away from a gut-wrenching conclusion to an impressive tournament for Gerard, but money was the last thing on his mind after signing his card.
An emotional turnaround in the last two holes of the fourth round was still fresh.
Tied with Poston and three others at 11-under for the tournament starting the 17th, Gerard birdied with a long putt of 36 feet, 9 inches that pushed him into sole possession of the lead with one hole remaining. He turned to a large gallery and pumped his fist amid loud cheers.
Suddenly, it was his tournament to lose, and Gerard looked poised to close it out. Poston had other ideas. He birdied the 18th, a par 4, leaving Gerard with a putt of 5 feet, 2 inches to make for par to force the playoff.
He drained it, but Gerard’s putting on the second playoff hole opened the door for Poston’s win.
“I didn’t think I had won the golf tournament [after the 17th hole],” Gerard said. “That was just a really big putt in the moment, and the emotion that kind of came out was like a day of grinding really, really hard and not really seeing anything long go in … and then that was kind of the one that kind of got the lid off the hole.”
It was also Gerard’s last celebration of the day, a final boost before an unforgiving course and Poston’s consistency smashed a bid for the second PGA Tour win of Gerard’s career. Gerard finished with an impressive 12-under 276, which he carded just one week after tying for 10th overall May 31 at the Charles Schwab Challenge.
“Strategically, there’s obviously things that you want to do, but at the end of the day, it’s an execution test,” he said. “I know I didn’t execute enough to get it done. I hit a lot of good golf shots. I hit a lot of good putts, but you shouldn’t let it get to a playoff like that if you’re hitting it as good as I did. So, we’re going to go work on a couple things.”
Dispatch reporter Brian Hedger can be reached at bhedger@dispatch.com and @BrianHedger.bsky.social
This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Gut wrenching Memorial Tournament loss leaves Ryan Gerard drained
Reporting by Brian Hedger, Columbus Dispatch / The Columbus Dispatch
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By Brian Hedger, Columbus Dispatch | USA TODAY Network
