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On the face of it, The Memorial Tournament should be ripe for a high-class winner. It's a fortnight after the PLAYERS, a fortnight before the US Open; the course, Muirfield Village, is an immaculate Jack Nicklaus design which allows all types to shine; the field, thanks to the positioning of the event and the Nicklaus factor, is always strong.
Yet for one reason or another, this title has gone to some of the less flashy players on the PGA Tour, notwithstanding the usual glut of victories for Tiger Woods - Matt Kuchar, Hideki Matsuyama, David Lingmerth, William McGirt and Jason Dufner since the last of Woods' five, the likes of Steve Stricker, Kenny Perry and KJ Choi before it.
Matsuyama aside, these are quality players but not (quite) part of the game's elite, and they are all best classified as neat and tidy - old school rather than new breed.
They also present a contradiction. Nicklaus is known for offering space off the tee in his designs, intensifying the challenge towards the greens, yet the last five winners as well as past champions Justin Rose and Ernie Els are known for their outstanding driving. Many of those who've pushed them closest, the likes of Kevin Na, Jim Furyk, Zach Johnson and Jon Curran, are as straight as they come. Why would these players emerge at a golf course which seeks to keep everyone in it from the tee?
Try as I might, I've not found the answer to that but one thing is clear - Muirfield Village has served up some wonderful ball-strikers, unmoved by the speed and contours of greens which are often compared to Augusta National. Like the Masters, this event tends not to be the test of short-game its nuts and bolts would suggest.
It's also worth noting that we are up in Ohio this week or, , "the 31st tournament of the 2017-18 season is the first in a northern latitude." That's worth noting because there are players who perform better in this part of the world, and it also points towards an obvious tie with Firestone, still home of the WGC-Bridgestone Invitational, the only other event played in this state.
Firestone, like Muirfield Village, has produced a list of champions whose strength is driving the ball. For Lingmerth, Rose and Els here, read Hunter Mahan, Adam Scott and Shane Lowry there. This helps explain why Lingmerth and McGirt, who earned Firestone starts with their wins here, went on to shine in the WGC.
Ties between the Memorial and the Bridgestone are more than geographical, although with the latter set to move to Memphis there's not long left to speculate. Still, it helps make the case for Keegan Bradley as this week's headline selection.
Bradley contended on his Firestone debut in 2011, returned to win there a year later and was a distant runner-up to Woods in 2013. He calls it one of his favourite courses on the PGA Tour and that makes sense, because ever since arriving on the scene with victory in the Byron Nelson seven years ago, he's consistently driven the ball just about as well as anyone.
Here at the Memorial, top-10 finishes in 2015 and 2016 underline his ability to score and he led the all-around ranking on the latter occasion, despite having struggled all year to that point. Indeed, eighth place was Bradley's first top-20 of the year and would prove his best performance of the season.
Two years on, and Bradley might find that things are falling into place as he looks to win for the first time since a forced switch from the anchored putting stroke he put to use when winning the 2011 PGA Championship.
Not only did Bradley find form to finish seventh at Sawgrass, by a distance his personal best at that venue, but he must surely have taken some encouragement from seeing Webb Simpson dominate from the off. Simpson and Bradley were among the high-profile victims of the anchoring ban and the PLAYERS champion demonstrates best that there is light at the end of the tunnel.
Bradley putted well himself at Sawgrass, where his iron play was excellent, and that follows on from a solid performance with the flat stick at the Wells Fargo. It's too soon to say he's found something he can work with, but there are at least some signs that might be the case and anything better than average on the greens makes him a contender.
The leader in this field in total driving, Bradley could well be the latest in a long line of modest putters to flush their way to contention here. At three-figure prices that's a chance I'm willing to take.
Every winner of this event since Carl Pettersson in 2006 either had or has gone on to secure a top-10 finish at Firestone, so I want to pursue that link further and give Adam Hadwin a chance to atone for last week's low-key effort at Colonial.
Hadwin has seemingly gone off the boil a little since an excellent start to the year, but I maintain that his performances at Augusta (24th) and Quail Hollow (16th) demonstrate that he's not far away, a belief which is strengthened by a run of cuts made which dates back to last August.
The Canadian is exactly the sort of no-frills type to thrive here and in three visits so far, he's already managed to contend, fading from fourth through 54 holes to 11th place in 2016.
Hadwin went on to break his duck the following spring with victory at another undulating, tree-lined golf course and among the rewards for that was a place at Firestone, where he finished an excellent fifth.
It's notable that he has some excellent form on Nicklaus-designed courses, particularly in the CareerBuilder Challenge where he's often been a threat, just like Dufner and Lingmerth. Hadwin has also been seventh at Glen Abbey, current home of the Canadian Open, and when 11th here two years ago said he enjoyed the width off the tee Nicklaus provides.
An above-average driver despite lacking length, Hadwin looks the right type for this event and can show as much if, as I suspect is the case, he's close to peak form.