Round 1: the Memorial Tournament presented by Nationwide Insurance

DUBLIN, Ohio – One of the game’s most laid-back players, Fred Couples, paid tribute to Luke Donald on Wednesday. saying that he was “almost like a machine” in the way he could pick his way around a golf course.

Well, that machine was stuck in neutral for most of his first round at the Memorial Tournament on Thursday. But Donald finally started hitting on all cylinders and roared back with four straight birdies on his back nine.

Donald

That streak lifted Donald from 2 over for the day into red numbers at 2 under. The round of 70 was the Englishman’s 22nd consecutive at par or better, which leads the TOUR, and put him in prime position to build on that string of seven straight top-10 finishes.

Donald got up and down for a tap-in birdie at the par-5 fifth to start the birdie binge, then followed up with putts 7, 6 and 16 feet. Donald, who ranks 163rd in driving distance, still managed to birdie three of the four par 5s, making bogey on the other.

The 32-year-old Brit came to Muirfield Village ranked second in the FedExCup. Donald also is riding the momentum of a win in Europe where he beat Lee Westwood in a playoff and supplanted him as the best player in the world.

“Luke Donald is an incredible player,’ Couples said. “I like the way he plays. … There are a lot of people that are really, really good and they get to a certain spot and then they just kind of hang there. And he’s the kind of guy who ‑‑ his game has gotten better over the years.

“I don’t know how old he is. I don’t know how many tournaments he’s won. But he’s going to win a lot more here in the near future, and the reason being is because he knows his game; he doesn’t bomb the ball, he doesn’t do a lot of incredible things, but he makes very few mistakes.

“And in golf, when you play and you don’t make many bogeys, you’re ahead of the game.”