The scenario this week is that the largest (by far) purse in the history of professional golf is on the table, and there is not one player out there who has been anything close to dominant over the last year.

When they tee it up Thursday morning at TPC Sawgrass in Ponte Vedra Beach FL, a purse of $15 million – yes, 15 – will be available. That’s up 17 percent from the $12.7 million that was distributed in 2019, when the event was last played. Using the normal purse distribution, 18 percent goes to the winner – that’s $2.7 million to one guy. Second and third are over a million, too.

As it always is, the field will be the strongest of the year in professional golf. What’s missing is any guy you can point to and say, “He’s been playing great for a long time.” The absence of steady, dominant play by anyone is reflected in the 1491.7 Hawley Rating by world no. 1 Jon Rahm. That’s the lowest rating for the no. 1 player in nearly seven years (1491.3 by Adam Scott, May 6, 2014), and there actually have been a few times in the last two years where a 1491 rating would not get a guy into the top 10.

Based on overall play in the last two years (emphasis on recent play), history in this event, and fit for the course, we have six guys who basically could call themselves co-favorites. All should be at odds of between 22-1 and 25-1 (although you wouldn’t get anything close to that at a betting outlet) based on a detailed statistical study of how often guys win, based on rating data. Here they are (alphabetical order because the numeric data doesn’t favor any one of them by much):

• Dustin Johnson – Doesn’t play a lot (seven appearances in six months since the last Tour Championship). Had a very nice stretch going back to last August where he was in the top 10 in eight of nine events with two wins and three seconds. Then he dropped out of sight two weeks ago in the WGC event, finishing 54th. And he had back-to-back missed cuts last July before the hot streak started. On the plus side, he is third in the field in terms of fit for the course, per the Hawley course fit numbers. He’s more than a stroke per round better than the field average.
• Rory McIlroy — Since the re-start of professional golf last June, he’s played 18 times with merely five top-10s and exactly half of his finishes in the top 25. Last week he started at or near the top of the leaderboard at the Palmer, then shot 72-76 on the weekend and ended up in an eight-way tie for 10th place. The week prior, he was sixth in the WGC-Workday. Three weeks ago he missed the cut by seven strokes in the Genesis. A plus, he has a strong record in this event, as nominally the defending champion based on the 2019 win. He was in the top 10 three years in a row from 2013 to 2015, and just missed in 2016.
• Jon Rahm – The nominal world no. 1 (or if you go by the Official World Golf Ratings, he’s no. 2 to Johnson) has been racking up top-10s but without a win since last August’s BMW. He also won the Memorial in July. The 26-year-old Spaniard has been in the top 10 five times in nine appearances since the Tour Championship, including second at the Zozo. He’s third on the Tour in consecutive cuts made (behind Xander Schauffele and Viktor Hovland) with 18.
• Xander Schauffele> — Frequently on the leaderboard but missing the big paydays; since winning the Champions two years ago, he has been second eight times. Had his worst outing since last June when barely inside the top 40 in his last time out, at the WGC Workday two weeks ago. Leads Tour in consecutive cuts made, as noted above. Also good for the course.
• Webb Simpson – Sorry if these guys all sound the same, but Simpson is always at least an even bet for the top 10, having been there four times in nine events since September. Last win was at Phoenix a year ago.
• Justin Thomas – Big Crimson Tide fan has been a bit off this year. After finishing third at the Champions, he’s got two missed cuts and two finishes a little outside the top 10 in four events.

Lurking down at 30th place in the ratings is classy, 27-year-old Texan Jordan Spieth, a former world no. 2 who had a couple of bad years in his mid-20s. Suddenly he’s strongly back in the conversation. How about this stretch in his last four appearances? Fourth at Phoenix, third at Pebble, 15th at the Genesis, and then fourth last weekend. He could be ready.

Four guys who also have the arrow pointed in the “up” direction are Tony Finau, Matthew Fitzpatrick, Viktor Hovland, and Scottie Scheffler. Finau has been getting a bit of a reputation for not finishing, nevertheless the record shows a nice little streak of a fourth and two seconds in the last seven weeks. Fitzpatrick, the 26-year-old Englishman, has three U.S. appearances this year with two top-10s and an 11th. Hovland shockingly fell apart last weekend, shooting 77-78 to fall off the leaderboard and all the way to a 49th-place finish. Before that, he had four finishes of fifth or better in five appearances, including the Mayakoba win, since December. Scheffler, last season’s rookie of the year, had back-to-back missed cuts in January but has two top-10s and one finish at 20th since then.

The course fit statistics for the famous TPC Sawgrass course reflect high value in getting past fairway trouble and promptly onto the green. Over the past eight years, the stat most closely correlated with success here is shots gained in approach, and greens in regulation is second.

Here’s a surprising name of the player ranked no. 1 in the field in course fit: Matthew NeSmith. And if you’re wondering who could emerge from deep in the rankings, consider NeSmith and two other possibles:

• Chris Kirk – Quietly, this 11-year Tour veteran is having a good year. He’s got two top-10s, two top-20s and a missed cut in 2021.
• Matthew NeSmith – The no. 1 player in the field in terms of course fit is 28 and from South Carolina. He managed one Tour appearance per year in 2012, 2013, 2015, 2016, and 2017 before playing regularly last year. He has two top-10s (Shriners, Phoenix) in 13 appearances this season. NeSmith is in the top 5 percent of all PGA and Euro pros in shots gained in approach and in the top 1 percent in greens in regulation.
• Carlos Ortiz – 29-year-old Mexican and product of the U. of North Texas won at Houston in November and has had kind of an up-and-down record of two top-10s, two top-20s, and three lesser finishes since then (one MC).

You may recall that they played one round here last year, with Hideki Matsuyama pacing the field with a 9-under score, before the Tour shut down for three months due to the covid pandemic.

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.