After withdrawing from last week’s Byron Nelson tournament Jason Day will try to break a 20-year Australian drought when play gets under way at the prestigious Memorial tournament this week.

The last Australian to win Jack Nicklaus’
tournament was Greg Norman in 1995 but as a member of the Muirfield Village Club,
Day will be hoping to use local knowledge to turn around a recent mini form
slump.

The 27-year-old played just six holes of the
Byron Nelson pro-am last week before withdrawing with dizziness and by his own
standards his previous two performances, at The PLAYERS and WGC Matchplay, were
less than stellar with no matches won and a missed cut at Sawgrass.

But with the US Open just a fortnight away Day,
whose best golf almost always comes at the biggest events, will be keen to turn
things around and it would be a surprise if he weren’t to contend this week.

He leads a seven strong Australian contingent
into the week with Steven Bowditch, Greg Chalmers, Matt Jones, Marc Leishman, John
Senden and Cameron Smith all earning starts.

Chalmers is playing courtesy of his PGA Tour
of Australasia Order of Merit win last year, this invitation just one of the
benefits of performing well over the Australian summer.

The left-hander has played decent though not
spectacular golf in his six starts on the PGA TOUR this year with just two
missed cuts and a best finish of T46 at last week’s Byron Nelson.

His form at this event is somewhat similar
with eight appearances for two missed cuts and a best of T35 back in 1999.

He is due for a good week and with his
stated goal after victory at the Australian PGA Championship prior to Christmas
being to regain full playing rights on the PGA TOUR this would be a good week
to post a top-10 result.

Like Chalmers, Cameron Smith is attempting
to play his way to the 2016 PGA TOUR but with no status and only invites to
rely on it is a tough path.

This will be the Queenslander’s seventh and
final sponsor’s invitation for the year and if he is to gain special temporary
membership for the rest of the season he needs a top-five finish in Ohio.

Jordan Spieth was the last golfer to earn
his way to the Tour via this route which requires a player to amass earnings
equal to the 125^th ranked player on the previous year’s money list.

With a little over $400,000 in earnings
this season Smith needs to match Nicholas Thompson’s $717,377 from 2014 or
finish in the top-10 this week if he is to continue teeing up on the PGA TOUR
this year.

Of the other Australians in the field last
week’s winner Steven Bowditch plays the Memorial for just the second time after
missing the cut last year and John Senden will be looking to put a missed cut
last week behind him.

Marc Leishman, who began the week at the
Byron Nelson as one of the favourites but went on to miss the cut for the first
time, has a lacklustre history at Murifield Village but could easily better
last year’s T37, his best result in six appearances.

Matt Jones is the final Australian in the
field and he will be looking to replicate his T6 performance of two years ago.

This tournament has been either feast or
famine for the Sydneysider with three missed cuts, one top-10 and a T64 in five
starts.