You don’t have to go back too far to find out what can happen in the next appearance after Rory McIlroy misses a cut, as he did last week under huge pressure from Northern Ireland fans in the British Open. He missed the cut at the Memorial in June, then one week later was photographed holding the Canadian Open trophy. Small sample space? He missed the cut in the Valspar in March 2018 and one week later was photographed holding the Arnold Palmer trophy. More samples? Well he doesn’t miss the cut often but including those two examples, he’s missed 10 cuts in the last five years. Twice he won the next event. Six times he was in the top 10 the next time out. In nine of the 10 times, he finished in the top 10 within two appearances.

Anyhow you get the idea. McIlroy doesn’t mope around for long after a MC.

This week the golf world experiences a very different vibe as a select field of 63 players appears in Memphis TN for the World Golf Championships-FedEx St. Jude Invitational. This is the event that used to be the Bridgestone Invitational, part of the World Golf Championships series. It also used to be the FedEx St. Jude Classic, part of the weekly PGA Tour. When the Tour condensed its season by a month, sponsorship of this WGC event moved from Bridgestone to St. Jude, and the location of it moved from Akron to Memphis.

About half the field arrived in a charter from Northern Ireland a bit after midnight on Monday this week. As the FedEx-St. Jude Classic, this event attracted a field that was in the bottom half of all field strengths on the Tour. Now as a WGC event, it has 22 of the top 25 players per the Hawley Ratings – missing Tiger Woods, Rickie Fowler, and Francesco Molinari. And more than two dozen other entrants in the FedEx-St. Jude appear in the ratings top 100.

McIlroy goes off as the favorite because he’s resilient, as noted above, because he’s no. 2 in the ratings and playing better than no. 1 Dustin Johnson, and because this is another course that works for him. Per the Hawley course fit statistics, driving distance, shots gained around the green, and driving accuracy, in that order, are the stats that correlate most strongly with success on the TPC Southwind course in events here over the last eight years. McIlroy is in the top 2 percent of U.S./ Euro pros in driving distance, top 20 percent in shots gained around the green, and top half in driving accuracy. His lead over the rest of the field in course fit is more than half a stroke per round, which is a lot.

Most of McIlroy’s top challengers also have stat profiles well-aligned with that list of stats. Jon Rahm (top 10 percent in driving distance, top 25 percent in shots gained around the green, and top half in accuracy) looks good too. Rahm was 11th in the British Open, winner of the Irish Open, runner-up in the Euro Tour Andalucia event, and third in the U.S. Open in his last four appearances. Brooks Koepka, Hideki Matsuyama, Justin Rose, and Adam Scott also are playing well recently and appear solid for the course.

If you’re looking for someone down the ratings list who is playing well, consider former Masters champ Danny Willett. Willett was sixth in the British Open, 12th in the U.S. Open, and eighth in the Canadian Open, with a missed cut in the Irish Open mixed in

The second event this weekend is the Barracuda Championship in Reno NV. The favorite there is Collin Morikawa, a 22-year-old who gave up his amateur status only last month. Morikawa has earned over $1 million in five professional appearances and would rank 92nd on the official money list if he had a Tour card now. If he is in the top 125 in the FedEx Cup standings when the playoffs start Aug. 8, which seems like a given, he will have secured a Tour card for 2019-’20. Third on the list of top picks is another rookie, Doc Redman, who also is over $1 million of earnings in five appearances.

Ryan Palmer looks like the best of the veterans. Vaughn Taylor, who like Palmer is one of the few top-100 players in the event, also has been playing well enough recently to merit consideration. This event uses the modified Stableford scoring system (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stableford).