For Tiger Woods and Brooks Koepka, the explosions that were their victories in majors were great and memorable. For Rory McIlroy, his less explosive but perhaps more amazing run of consistency just goes on and on. Here is what McIlroy has done this year:
January – Fourth in Champions, fifth in Farmers.
February – Fourth in Genesis, second in WGC-Mexico.
March – Sixth in Palmer, won TPC, fifth in WGC-Match Play.
April – 21st in the Masters.
May – Eighth at Wells Fargo, eighth at PGA.

Almost needless to say, McIlroy leads the PGA Tour in top-10s, even after sitting out the fall events. He is the clear favorite this week as the Tour visits the northern half of the country for the second time this year at the Memorial Tournament presented by Nationwide in Columbus OH. He will tee it up against a field that includes six others from this week’s Hawley Ratings top 10, and 12 out of the top 20.

If there is any possible knock on McIlroy, it would be that his two worst finishes were in the majors. Although, come on, lots of Tour players would be happy with those finishes. McIlroy was asked if the placement of this event on the Tour schedule – between the PGA Championship and the U.S. Open — was any kind of issue in terms of getting into the best form for the majors. “If anyone has come up with a formula, I’d like to hear it,” he told the Columbus Dispatch. “I would rather just have my game at a high level for as much of the year as I possibly can. If you’re playing good enough, you’re going to get yourself into contention more times than not, and you just hope that some of those weeks are the bigger weeks.”

Of course, McIlroy is not the only player coming into this event playing well. Among the top 20, Matt Kuchar has been playing very well lately, and ditto Adam Scott and Patrick Cantlay. Kuchar has four top-10s in his last five appearances, including as runner-up twice (WGC Match and Heritage). Scott has been up (three top-10s this year) and down (three finishes outside the top 50) after a long run where he was mostly down. Cantlay was third in the Heritage and PGA, sandwiched around a missed cut in the Zurich. Jordan Spieth was strong for three rounds last week, and of course Tiger has that Masters win.

The statistics most highly correlated with success on the Muirfield Village course over the past eight Memorials are shots gained in approach, driving distance, sand saves, and driving accuracy, in that order. The two favorites, Kuchar, by a good margin, and McIlroy, are the top two players in the field in terms of how their statistical profile matches up to those stats, according to the Hawley course fit statistics. Kuchar is in the top three percent of U.S./ Euro players in SG approach, and in the top five percent in driving accuracy and sand saves. McIlroy is in the top five percent in driving distance and SG approach, and in the top 15 percent in sand saves.

Euro player Joost Luiten (top one percent in SG approach) is next, followed by Hideki Matsuyama, Justin Thomas, Justin Rose, Keegan Bradley, and Emiliano Grillo.

Two of the well-established players in the field whose games would appear to be poor matches for the course are Charley Hoffman and Spieth (bottom half in driving accuracy, SG approach, and sand saves).

Among those not playing up to their reputations recently are Bryson DeChambeau (no top-10s in the U.S. this year and three straight finishes outside the top 50), Charles Howell (mid-pack in the two majors and three missed cuts sandwiched between them), and Phil Mickelson (top-20 in the Masters and far back in his last four other stroke-play events).