DUBLIN, OHIO — The leaderboards positioned at critical junctures of a professional golf tournament are more than scoreboards. They are omnipresent yardsticks measuring the rhythm of the contest with hole-by-hole counts for the top golfers, collectively meant to tell the whole story of the event.
But Sunday in the final round of the Memorial Tournament, there was a jarring omission from every leaderboard, a name conspicuously missing.
Patrick Cantlay won the 2021 Memorial, out-dueling Collin Morikawa in a see-saw battle that included one extra playoff hole, but the heart-rending story of the event will always be the Saturday evening withdrawal of Jon Rahm, who had tested positive for coronavirus.