Memorial Tournament Power Rankings: Top 10 picks for Muirfield Village

The Memorial Tournament brings an absolutely loaded field to “Jack’s Place” this week. Who will come out on top at Muirfield Village in one of the PGA TOUR’s most prestigious events?

It’s hard to find a better field at a standard PGA Tour event than at the Memorial Tournament. The Jack Nicklaus-hosted tournament is an invitational, which means the field is 120 players compared to 156, there are no Monday qualifiers and the field is not determined by the standard PGA Tour priority rankings.

Eight of the world’s top ten, including all of the top three, are at Muirfield Village in Dublin, Ohio, this week. The last six Memorial champions are in the field as well.

The Memorial annually draws great fields due to its position on the schedule two weeks prior to the U.S. Open. Playing a revered course doesn’t hurt, either.

The field takes on a 7,392-yard par-72 course that’s also hosted the 1992 U.S. Amateur, 1987 Ryder Cup, 1998 Solheim Cup, 1986 U.S. Junior Amateur and the 2013 Presidents Cup. Muirfield was ranked No. 53 in the 2014 Golf Digest top 100 golf courses in the world.

Muirfield’s fairways are relatively generous, but wayward shots are penalized with thick rough. Greens tend to run pretty fast and the adjoining bunkers have a reputation as some of the Tour’s toughest.

The par-3s all play to around 175-200 yards, the par-4s are long (only one under 400 yards) and the par-5s are fairly gettable, each playing between about 525-575.

It’s shooting fish in a barrel to try to come up with ten worthy candidates for this week’s picks. To break some ties, I’ll weigh in key stats such as scrambling and sand saves, approach proximity and par-4 scoring.

Let’s get after it!