2021 Memorial Tournament: Top 10 power rankings at Muirfield Village

Hideki Matsuyama sure made a splash in his debut at Muirfield Village. His big year in Japan and in limited starts in the U.S. and the European Tour in 2013 set the table for an even bigger 2014.

Japan’s young star won the Memorial Tournament that year as a 22-year-old. He fired 70-67-69-69 and beat steely veteran Kevin Na in a playoff.

Matsuyama defended his title well by finishing T-5th (64-71-71-70) in 2015, followed by T-13th (65-71-71-71) in 2018, sixth (71-70-64-72) in 2019 and T-22nd (67-68-72-73) at the 2020 Workday Charity Open. He missed the cut at the 2020 Memorial, but it was his third tournament in a row last summer after the pandemic hit. International players as a whole struggled compared to American players in part due to difficult travel and quarantine conditions.

Now a Masters champion and coming off a solid result at the PGA Championship, he’s poised to not only make the cut again at Muirfield Village, but to contend for another trophy.

Matsuyama ranks 17th on the PGA Tour in strokes gained tee to green (1.088). The putter is still a weakness. Perhaps he can get it rolling on bentgrass the way he did at Augusta National.

Matsuyama is 17th in par-5 scoring (4.53).

His T-23rd at the PGA was his fourth made stroke play cut in a row and fifth in the last six.

Matsuyama was off last week and took four tournaments off after the Masters. I like him to be one of the fresher players in the field ready to attack a favorable course setup for his game.