Memorial Tournament 2013: Hottest and Coldest Golfers Heading into Tournament

Jack Nicklaus' Memorial Tournament at Muirfield Village is the biggest PGA event between the Masters and the U.S. Open. 

The majority of golf's top players will be in attendance, and that includes five-time winner and current No. 1 Tiger Woods. You can view the tee times and field here via PGATour.com.

Not surprisingly, Woods will be making an appearance on the hot side of this upcoming list, and if he holds current form, he will be battling for the win on Sunday.

He isn't the only player rolling into this event with a hot hand, though. Check out his two peers joining him on this list and who will be looking to continue their stellar play this week.

I'll also highlight three golfers who are badly in need of reversing the trend of their current play.

*All stats, unless otherwise noted, via PGATour.com.

Cold No. 3: Rickie Fowler

This was supposed to be a breakout year for Rickie Fowler. He picked up his first PGA win last year, and also had five top 10s. 

Early on this year, it looked like he was well on his way to progressing into the game's elite. He was sixth in his first two events of the year, and he added a third in March at Bay Hill. 

However, in his five events since Bay Hill, he has not finished higher than 32nd, and his last three times out he was 73rd at the Wells Fargo, missed the cut at the Players and was 54th at the Crowne Plaza. 

Fowler's struggles are easy to pinpoint. He hasn't hit more than 52 percent of his fairways in his last three tournaments and his strokes gained-putting has been  -.434 or worse in his last three starts.

Fowler has the talent to succeed, but his game is in bad shape at the moment. 

Hot No. 3: Marc Leishman

After he was derailed by a 72 and 73 in the third and fourth rounds, Marc Leishman was a modest 46th last week at the Crowne Plaza.

It will be interesting to see if those final two rounds are a sign that the end of his impressive hot streak has arrived or if it was merely a blip on the radar.

Heading into last week, he had put together a supremely successful string of golf. In his previous four starts, he was 12th in the Byron Nelson, eighth at the Players, ninth at the Heritage and fourth at the Masters. 

During this run, he was displaying his whole game. Since the Masters, he has hit at least 61 percent of greens in regulation in each start, and he's been drilling putts. 

Leishman is not the most reliable putter, but he's finished each of his past four tournaments with a positive number in strokes gained-putting.   

Cold No. 2: Bill Haas

Bill Haas is a streaky golfer, and that has been on full display this year. Just a month ago, he was one of the hottest players on the planet. 

In a string of 10 tournaments that spanned from January's Farmers Insurance Open to April's Heritage, he had just two finishes outside of the top 25, and his worst was a 43rd. He also had four top 10s in that stretch and a 20th at the Masters. 

He has only played two events since the Heritage, but he missed the cut in both, and he hasn't broken 70 in those four rounds.

In his first missed cut at Wells Fargo, he couldn't hit a fairway to save his life. His driving improved dramatically at the Players, but one problem persisted: He couldn't putt. 

In each of his last two tournaments, he's finished with a strokes gained-putting mark of just worse than -1.2. For a player who has a positive mark in that stat for the season, that is a huge slump. 

Hot No. 2: Charley Hoffman

The Tour's unofficial mullet king, Charley Hoffman, is playing fantastic golf. Dating back to the Texas Open, Hoffman has played six events. 

This span does include one missed cut, but his other outings have more than made up for that. Hoffman has three top 10s in that span, and just one start besides the missed cut where he finished outside the top 20. 

Hoffman was 18th last week at the Crowne and eighth in his start before that at the Byron Nelson. 

This has propelled him to 43rd on the money list, and he is less than $200,000 away from his total earnings for all of last year. 

Hoffman owes the bulk of this success to his flat iron. 

Starting with the Texas Open, he has put up a strokes gained-putting mark of at least 1.4 in four of his six outings, and he has all the looks of a player in a late-career resurgence. 

Cold No. 1: Vijay Singh

Vijay Singh is having quite the eventful year.

It began with issues revolving around a failed drug test where it was revealed he'd been using deer antler spray. Singh was eventually cleared by the PGA, and he will not face any suspension or punishment.

He didn't deny taking the substance, but also didn't know it had substances that were banned. 

Then, in early May, Singh decided to sue the Tour because he was humiliated by the investigation. 

The suit came just prior to the Players. In his tournament prior to the Players, the Heritage, Singh missed the cut.

While the connection between the two is debatable, there is no debating that Singh has been awful. He missed the cut at the Players, finished 80th at the Byron Nelson and again missed the cut at the Crowne. 

He has three missed cuts and an 80th in his past four events, and all of this comes after he didn't miss a single cut in his first seven events of the year. 

Hot No. 1: Tiger Woods

Tiger Woods hasn't been in action since winning the Players, but a few weeks off can't keep him from the top spot of our hot list. 

What Woods is doing this year, just doesn't happen in this day and age of deep fields and ultra competitive tournaments. 

In his seven PGA starts this year, Tiger has won four of them, and three of those wins came in his last four events. His lone non-win in that stretch came at the Masters where he finished all the way back in fourth. 

His most impressive win of the season is easily his last. He had struggled at the Players in recent history, and the combination of tight fairways and the short course does not suit up well for his game—especially considering his driving-accuracy woes. 

However, he often left the driver in the bag and hit 67.9 percent of his fairways in that tournament, which is easily his best mark of the year. He also continued his great work with the putter. Woods leads the PGA in strokes gained-putting this year, and he hasn't finished one tournament with lower than .2 strokes gained-putting. 

Now, Woods is returning to a course where he is supremely comfortable and dominant. He is a great bet to pick up yet another win.