Steve Alker’s long ride to the top of the Tour Champions

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At the same time that the PGA TOUR matches the record for shortest road trip between consecutive tournaments, it presents what has been a familiar event since the Bicentennial. Just like last week’s Workday Charity Open, the Memorial Tournament presented by Nationwide has been contested on only one course throughout its history. And while it was fun to fill the recent hiatus with an all-time Power Rankings at Muirfield Village Golf Club, nothing beats real-time competition, especially given the fact that the No. 1 is back in action. As of midday Monday, 89 who teed it up at the Workday hung around for the nightcap of this “Dublin-header” in central Ohio. For a review of how Muirfield Village played last week in comparison to last year’s Memorial, what this week’s field should expect and more, scroll past the projected contenders. RELATED: Featured Groups | The First Look | Inside the Field POWER RANKINGS: THE MEMORIAL Notables reviewed in Tuesday’s Fantasy Insider will include 2010 champion Justin Rose, Brooks Koepka, Jason Day, Rickie Fowler and Jordan Spieth. Despite the spillover of talent from the Workday to the Memorial, the construction of each field is different. The Workday was a 157-man open, while the grouping for the 132-deep Memorial is an invitational, albeit 12 stronger than originally scheduled (to accommodate for playing time lost due to the pandemic). So, it probably doesn’t surprise keen-eyed golf fans that the field for the Workday hit fewer than 10 percent of the welcoming fairways on average than last year’s Memorial field (of 120), even with rain limiting rollout on landing areas. As it concerned saving par, last week’s scrambling percentage of 52.32 was the lowest of any course this season. That’s not a full three points lower than the 2019 Memorial field (that ranked seventh-lowest in all of 2018-19), but it’s an indication of overall comfort and familiarity, or lack thereof, on the 5,000-square foot targets. Still, the Workday field checked in with a scoring average of 71.853 for the week. Last year’s Memorial field landed at 72.081. Muirfield Village is a stock par 72 on which par is a decent score when the wind blows, which it did for a good portion of the 2019 Memorial. However, whoever claims this week’s title, the three-year PGA TOUR membership exemption and the three-year exemption into THE PLAYERS Championship, will have begun the tournament eyeing double digits under par. Each of the last seven champions have completed 72 holes no worse than 12-under 276. Inclement weather cannot be ruled out during any round, which means that rain will fall, and wind won’t be an issue, so scoring will remain low. It’s probably a stretch to consider 19-under 269 repeating itself. That was the aggregate posted by Workday champion Collin Morikawa and playoff victim Justin Thomas. They played the 7,456-yard track with modifications made for the substitute event. Traditional tees and hole locations will bookend the experience on what should play as a longer test overall for the Memorial, at least in degrees. The bentgrass greens for the Workday were prepped to run 11-11.5 feet on the Stimpmeter, but the undulations seemed to contribute to what normally would be a slow pace by TOUR standards. Weather-dependent, as always, this week’s speed could eclipse 13 feet, longest of any event that releases the measurement. ROB BOLTON’S SCHEDULE PGATOUR.COM’s Fantasy Insider Rob Bolton recaps and previews every tournament from numerous angles. Look for his following contributions as scheduled. MONDAY: Rookie Ranking, Qualifiers, Reshuffle, Medical Extensions, Power Rankings TUESDAY*: Sleepers, Fantasy Insider * – Rob is a member of the panel for PGATOUR.COM’s Expert Picks for PGA TOUR Fantasy Golf, which also publishes on Tuesday.

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