The first time the FedEx St. Jude Classic golf tournament debuted was back in the May of 1958, and back than the tournament was called the Memphis Open. Throughout the years the tournament has had a wide array of titles, including; the Danny Thomas Memphis classic in 1970, than in 2007 when Stanford Financial group took over the sponsorship role, changed the name of the tournament to Stanford St. Jude Championship.
Than in 2009 dropped the Stanford and became just the St. Jude Classic and last year earned its latest title as the FedEx St. Jude Classic when FedEx emerged as the latest sponsor. This year in 2012, the total purse for the tournament was $5,600,000 with $1,008,000.00 going to the overall winner; a huge jump from a seemingly petty $500,000.00 from just two decades previous.
The winner this year for the 2012 FedEx St. Jude Classic is Dustin Johnson. Dustin gets a huge victory on his way to the top of the PGA standings after his short 2 week return from injury. Johnson won the tournament that was held in Memphis, Tennessee in dramatic fashion at 62 strokes, barley holding on to victory by a one stroke margin, narrowly ahead of John Merrick.
"Well, it feels really good, especially having so much time off," Johnson said.
The St. Jude Classic champion pulled a muscle in his lower back early march when enjoying time at home. Using lots of rest for his healing remedy, Johnson finally returned just last week at the Memorial Day Tournament, which was won by Tiger Woods, when Dustin finished in 19th place.
In the final round of the tournament, when Dustin Johnson was teeing off in the morning, he started his day off two strokes back from the lead. Throughout the day Johnson kept himself in contention of the lead. Late in the day on hole 16 and 17 Dustin sunk two birdies back to back launching him ahead of the completion and sole leader of the tournament.
"And you know, I did that," Johnson later said. "I had a lot of looks, lot of good looks and made a few putts coming down the stretch. Made great birdies at 16 and 17."
After the victory in Memphis Johnson now ranks 18th in the standings from the huge 500 point boost. Even though Dustin sunk two huge birdies in the two holes previous to the 18th, he was still being trailed, seperating himself with a single stroke, by a few of the best golfers in the world; Rory Mcllroy, Chad Campbell and Nick O’Hem. All three of those players striped their tee shots right to the rattle snake in the lake, eliminating them from having a shot of being crowned winner.
With Rory Mcllroy’s latest finish at the FedEx St. Jude Classic, he has lost his shot at number one on the FedEx Cup leaderboard. Now the question is will Rory still play with the same fire we are so used to seeing him play, will he still be as hungry for another win to join his win he earned previously in the year? Only time will tell if this loss is a season ending blow to Rory for the season.
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