Tiger Woods, Rory McIlroy and Brooks Koepka highlight featured groups at Memorial

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Fans were denied their dream pairing for the first two rounds of the Memorial. But the consolation prize isn’t too shabby.

After Brooks Koepka took a not-so-subtle shot at Bryson DeChambeau on Twitter last week, many were hoping to see the two bashers go head-to-head on Thursday and Friday at Muirfield Village. Alas, that heavyweight bout will have to wait.

Instead, Koepka is matched with Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy, highlighting one of four featured groups in Columbus.

Woods, a five-time Memorial winner, is making his first official start since February. McIlroy has four top 10s in eight starts at Muirfield Village, his best finish at T-4 in 2016, while Koepka is hoping for a bounce back from last week’s missed cut at the Workday Charity Open, also held at Muirfield Village.

As for DeChambeau, who won in his last start and has finished no worse than T-8 in his past seven outings, he will play with Collin Morikawa and Patrick Cantlay. DeChambeau (2018) and Cantlay (2019) are past Memorial winners, with Morikawa coming off his second career title at the Workday.

The two other featured threesomes for the first two rounds of the Memorial are Phil Mickleson, Justin Rose and Shane Lowry and Justin Thomas, Xander Schauffele and Dustin Johnson.