Tommy Fleetwood and Wyndham Clark part of four-way tie at the top of Memorial leaderboard

The quartet each carded five under 67s and were part of only 22 players who broke par at the difficult Muirfield Village course, where small errors had costly consequences.

A swirling, hot wind was difficult to read and it made the greens even firmer, meaning only the strong (or lucky) survived. Fleetwood was one of them. Despite hitting only seven greens in regulation, the Englishman largely avoided danger and scrambled for a bogey-free 67, his lowest round on five occasions at Memorial.

"I got the most out of the round, totally," he told AP.

"I got away with a couple of poor misses. Hit the pin a couple of times when it was going past. Shot 5 under, so it couldn't have been that bad. I was just getting a little frustrated at the end not being able to execute the iron shots that I wanted to."

On the other side of the coin was world number one Scottie Scheffler. The American was two under at the turn, but a disastrous back nine would lead to him signing for a one-over 73.

The turning point of his round was a shot into the par-three 16th that found the water, leading to a double bogey. Scheffler was irate because he felt he hit it perfectly off the tee. The rollercoaster continued on the 17th, as he made a soft error on approach, then chipped in for birdie.

"See, that's the thing that can be so frustrating about golf," quipped the four-time major winner.

"I striped one on the hole before that and I end up in the water. That one I kind of hit thin, and you get a good bounce and I end up on the fringe and I chip in.

"Yeah, what a game, I felt like I didn't get anything out of the round, all of a sudden you get a lucky bounce and you're like, 'OK, well, I'm going to try to smile.' It's still hard."

Further down the leaderboard, Canadian Nick Taylor is alone in fifth on four under, while Sam Burns and Justin Rose are on three under.