DUBLIN, Ohio — Matt Kuchar didn’t want history to repeat itself.
So Kuchar went out and fired a 68 on Sunday that included a 21-foot birdie on the 72nd hole and allowed him to win the Memorial Tournament presented by Nationwide Insurance by two strokes.
The win was the second of the season for Kuchar, a first for his career. A week ago at the Crowne Plaza Invitational presented by Nationwide Insurance, Kuchar had been poised for victory but Bubba Watson came from behind with a final-round 66.
Kuchar, who led by as many as four on the back nine, finished at 12 under. Kevin Chappell, who also birdied the final hole, with his coming from just 2 feet, was second at 10 under while Kyle Stanley finished alone in third at 7 under.
The victory propelled Kuchar to second in the FedExCup standings.
The world’s No. 1 and 2 players, Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy, finished well back. Woods, who was the defending and five-time Memorial champ, shot 8 over and was tied for 65th. McIlroy was two strokes better as each player only broke par once in four rounds.
Leaderboard: Matt Kuchar 68-70-70-68—276 (-12); Kevin Chappell 71-71-68-68—278 (-10); Kyle Stanley 67-70-73-71—281 (-7)
Matt Kuchar
— Kuchar moves to No. 2 in the FedExCup standings, 423 points behind Tiger Woods.
— Kuchar’s sixth PGA Tour victory comes in his 292nd Tour start at the age of 34 years, 11 months and 12 days.
— In eight starts at the Memorial, Kuchar has five top-10 finishes, each coming in the last six years; 2008/T10, 2009/T5, 2010/T8, 2011/T2 and 2013/Won.
— Kuchar leads the Tour with 35 top-10 finishes since the start of the 2010 season.
— Kuchar claims his sixth PGA Tour victory: 2002 Honda Classic, 2009 Turning Stone Resort Championship, 2010 The Barclays, 2012 The Players Championship, 2013 World Golf Championships-Accenture Match Play Championship, 2013 Memorial Tournament.
— Kuchar joins Tiger Woods as the only multiple winners this season.
— This is Kuchar’s first multi-win season.
— Kuchar finished runner-up last week at the Crowne Plaza Invitational at Colonial. Earlier this year, Brandt Snedeker finished runner-up at the Waste Management Phoenix Open and then won the next week at the AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am.
— Kuchar has held a lead after four of the last eight rounds on Tour (R2-R3/Crowne Plaza Invitational and R3-R4/Memorial).
— In February, Kuchar defeated Hunter Mahan in the finals of the World Golf Championships-Accenture Match Play Championship in an event that featured hail, sleet and snow.
— Kuchar improves to 2-1 when holding the third-round lead/co-lead. He finished second at last week’s Crowne Plaza Invitational at Colonial and won the 2009 Turning Stone Resort Championship after holding a share of the 54-hole lead.
— Kuchar’s win is the 356th on the PGA Tour by an alumnus of the Web.com Tour.
— The third-round leader/co-leader of the Memorial Tournament has won 18 times since the event’s 1976 inception.
— Muirfield Village Golf Club will host the Presidents Cup in October. Kuchar went 1-3-1 in his only appearance in a Presidents Cup when it was held at Royal Melbourne in Australia in 2011.
— American’s have now won 19 of 23 events on Tour this season.
— In 2010, Kuchar turned in the best season of his career, finishing second in the FedExCup standings with a victory (The Barclays) and a Tour-leading and career-best 11 top-10 finishes. He also captured the Arnold Palmer Award for leading the Tour in official earnings ($4,910,477), as well as the Vardon Trophy and the Byron Nelson Award for lowest adjusted scoring average (69.61).
Kevin Chappell
— Chappell, who made his fourth career start at the Memorial this week, finished T37 at Muirfield Village in 2011 and missed the cut in 2009 and 2012.
— Chappell made his 15th start of the season this week, with eight made cuts three top-10 finishes. In his first start of the season, he finished T8 at the Humana Challenge and in March finished T6 at the Shell Houston Open.
— Chappell, who joined the Tour in 2011, remains in search of his first Tour win (77 starts). He matches his best career finish on Tour (T2 at the 2011 Valero Texas Open).
— Only four players have made the Memorial Tournament their maiden PGA Tour victory: Keith Fergus (1981), Kenny Perry (1991), Tom Lehman (1994) and Justin Rose (2010).
— Chappell has finished in the top 10 at the U.S. Open the last two years (T3/2011 and T10/2012).
Kyle Stanley
— Stanley is making his 15th start of the season this week, having collected two top-10 finishes, both of which have come in his last four starts. He finished third at the Zurich Classic of New Orleans and T6 a week later at the Wells Fargo Championship. Stanley is coming off a missed cut at last week’s Crowne Plaza Invitational at Colonial.
— Stanley is playing in the Memorial for the third time. He finished T37 in 2011 and missed last year’s cut at Muirfield Village Golf Club.
Scott Stallings
— Stallings finished T4 (-6) in his third career start at the Memorial Tournament. Previously, he finished T20 in 2011 and T25 in 2012.
— Stallings has only made seven of 16 cuts on Tour this season. He had four straight missed cuts before finishing T4 last week at the Crowne Plaza Invitational at Colonial. His only other top 10 this season was a T4 at the Humana Challenge.
— Stallings’ two wins on Tour came at the 2011 Greenbrier Classic and the 2012 Sanderson Farms Championship.
Tournament Notes:
— Matt Kuchar and Kevin Chappell are the only two players in the field to record all four rounds under par.
— Tiger Woods finished T65 at 8-over 296. In 1997, he finished T67 at the Memorial.
— Woods’ highest score in a 72-hole event is a 298 at the 2010 WGC-Bridgestone Invitational (T78 – 80 players finished 72-holes). His worst finish after making the cut in a 72-hole event is T82 at the 1996 U.S. Open when he was an amateur. The T78 at the 2010 WGC-Bridgestone is his worst finish as a professional.
— Woods has two triple-bogeys this week at the Memorial. His record for most triple-bogeys or worse is three at the 1997 British Open (2 triple-bogeys and 1 quadruple-bogey). He won his previous start before the 1997 British Open (Motorola Western Open), his fourth win of the season, but did not win again in 1997 after the British Open.
— Woods had eight three-putts at the 1997 U.S. Open.
— Russell Henley (T6) notches his third top 10 of the season in his first career start at the Memorial.
— Matt Jones (T6) records his first top 10 on Tour since the 2012 Puerto Rico Open.
— Ryan Moore (T13) led the field by hitting 54 of 56 fairways.
— Past Memorial champions in the field: Justin Rose (T8); Jim Furyk (T21), K.J. Choi (T21); Carl Pettersson (T29); Ernie Els (T37); Fred Couples (T50), Tiger Woods (T65), Kenny Perry (MC); and Vijay Singh (MC).
— In the 37-year history of the Memorial Tournament, only seven International players have won at Muirfield Village Golf Club, most recently Justin Rose in 2010.
— In the 37-year history of the Memorial Tournament, the first-round leader/co-leader has gone on to victory just twice (Justin Rose – 2010 and Ernie Els – 2004).
— There was one bogey-free round this year at the Memorial. The previous record at the Memorial was two bogey-free rounds the entire week in 1984. The last time there were no bogey-free rounds in a tournament was at the 2011 RBC Canadian Open.
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