Wondering if this is the week when the mediocre Rory McIlroy turns it around and emerges as the Rory McIlroy who was no. 1 in the world rankings for over a year in 2019 and 2020? It’s a good question and this week’s Arnold Palmer Invitational might be an opportune time to ask.

When the golf world shut down near the end of last winter, McIlroy was in a streak that saw him finish in the top five in eight consecutive events, with two wins. Since the re-start last June, he’s played 17 times with merely four top-10s and not even half (8 of 17) finishes in the top 25. He bottomed out two weeks ago, missing the cut by seven strokes in the Genesis. His Hawley Rating number plummeted from 2089 on Mar. 10 to its current 1439, although it only cost him one rung in the ladder, from first to second. Last week he bounced back to a sixth-place finish in the WGC-Workday.

Factors supporting a successful week for the 31-year-old Northern Irishman include a nice record in this event and a statistical profile that is a decent fit for the course. He’s been in the top 10 in his last four appearances at the Palmer, including the 2018 win. He’s second in the world to Bryson DeChambeau in driving distance and kind of midrange in the stat that is the big indicator here, greens in regulation.

The field is about normal for this event, with four players from the Hawley Ratings top 10 on hand, the others being DeChambeau, Patrick Reed, and Hideki Matsuyama. None of them has been what you would call consistently good the last few times out – each of the three has one missed cut in the last two appearances. For solid, steady play, how about these three:

• Viktor Hovland – The 23-year-old Norwegian has had a great few months. He’s up from 19th in the ratings on Jan. 1 to 14th now, based on four straight top-10s, including runner-up finishes in the Farmers and WGC-Workday. He’s in the top 5 percent of U.S. and Euro pros in greens in regulation.
• Francesco Molinari – The 2019 winner of this event, and the guy who hit that embarrassing 70-yard topped tee shot at Pebble Beach last month, is putting things back together. He’s played four times since missing the cut at the Masters, and three of them have been excellent – top-10s at the Genesis, Farmers, and AmEx. He’s also had four top-10s in this event in the last eight years.
• Jordan Spieth – The one-time world no. 2 slipped almost out of sight from 2018 through this year’s Farmers, with 45 finishes worse than 25th in 70 events. As out of nowhere, he then finished fourth at Phoenix, third at Pebble, and in the top 15 at the Genesis.

The Bay Hill Club and Lodge in Orlando, host of this event since 1979, has an interesting quirk in the player statistics area. The stat most closely correlated with success in the last eight iterations of the Arnie is greens in regulation, and none of the other stats reflects anything like that impact. (Driving distance is the only other stat with stronger than average correlation with success.) Also this course is the only one on Tour with greens in regulation being its no. 1 predictor of success. From the top 10 on this week’s greens in regulation list, the following, in order, are entered: Matthew NeSmith, Russell Knox, Cameron Percy, Emiliano Grillo, Aaron Wise, Martin Laird, and Hovland.

Looking into the second 100 of the ratings, here are three guys who might be ready to do something:

• Luke List – He’s 136th in the ratings and a good fit for the course. A missed cut at the Genesis spoiled a nice little stretch of three events where he was 30th at Phoenix, 10th at the Farmers, and 21st at the AmEx.
• Chris Kirk – He’s 128th in the ratings. He was runner -up in the Sony and then sandwiched top-20 finishes in the AmEx and Pebble around a missed cut at Phoenix.
• Doug Ghim – He’s 145th in the ratings. The 24-year-old native of Illinois was fifth in the AmEx for his biggest payday by far in four years of playing PGA Tour events. Subsequently he was mid-pack in the Farmers and Pebble before missing the cut in the Genesis.