At the beginning of this calendar year, I made 10 predictions. None of them have actually come true yet, but one of them was that Tiger Woods would win in 2018. I know it's difficult to remember the way we perceived things a week ago, much less five months ago, but it felt as if I was stepping out on a limb skinnier than Chesson Hadley with that prognostication.

Four top-12 finishes later, and it doesn't seem as improbable as it did at the time. Woods has contended at the Honda Classic, Valspar Championship, Arnold Palmer Invitational and Players Championship. His best chance to win was the Valspar, and all four of his close calls have come in the state of Florida. 

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He is No. 10 on the PGA Tour in strokes gained overall, and seven of the nine golfers ahead of him in that category have won golf tournaments in 2018. There is a lot of evidence stacking up that Woods not only can win in 2018 but that he will.

However ...

The problem with predicting Woods' wins at this point in his career is that you have to choose from a list of big time tournaments you think he's going to take. The Valspar Championship was the rare lesser-tier tourney Woods competed in, and that field still included Jordan Spieth and Rory McIlroy. Woods hasn't deviated much from his old schedule, and based on his comments at The Players a few weeks ago, doesn't plan to. He almost exclusively plays monster tournaments.

"I added Valspar because I missed the cut at L.A.," Woods said. "I needed more tournament rounds in before Augusta. I felt like I've got the tournament experience now. I got my feels, and I know what I'm going to do in a tournament."

Based on that information, this is the list of events Woods will play the rest of this season.

  • The Memorial (May 31 - June 3)
  • U.S. Open (June 14-17)
  • The National (June 28 - July 1)
  • The Open (July 19-22)
  • WGC-Bridgestone Invitational (if he qualifies) (Aug. 2-5)
  • PGA Championship (Aug. 9-12)
  • The Northern Trust (Aug. 23-26, FedEx Cup Playoffs)
  • Dell Technologies Championship (Aug. 31 - Sept. 3, FedEx Cup Playoffs)
  • BMW Championship (Sept. 6-9, FedEx Cup Playoffs)
  • Tour Championship (Sept. 20-23, FedEx Cup Playoffs)

That's 10 tournaments in a perfect world in which he qualifies for the Bridgestone and moves on in every round of the FedEx Cup Playoffs all the way to the final 30 at the Tour Championship. It's not necessarily improbable -- Woods is currently No. 54 in the FedEx Cup rankings -- but again, it's a perfect world.

So let's look at those 10 tournaments and try to figure out which one Woods is most likely to win. I'm taking out the majors because I don't think that's happening right now. He's been good, but not that good. Caveat here: If he does win one I'm guessing it will be at Carnoustie where he can hit an unholy amount of 2-irons and think his way into a Sunday afternoon tee time.

The Bridgestone and playoffs require him actually getting in and will have elite fields. Those are long-ish shots if only because he's not guaranteed to play them. That leaves The National at TPC Potomac at Avenel Farm and the Memorial this weekend at Muirfield Village. The Memorial will certainly have a better field that includes  McIlroy, Speith, Dustin Johnson, Justin Rose, Justin Thomas and Rickie Fowler. But it's also a place where Woods has had more success.

Woods has never played TPC Potomac at Avenel Farm so we don't have much to go on there, but he's played Memorial a ton and won it five times, the most recent of which was a two-stroke win in 2012. He has dominated with wins in 1999, 2000, 2001, 2009 and 2012. He also has three other top-five finishes in 15 total trips. That's a top-five percentage of 53 percent. Insanity.

Of course, last time Woods played Muirfield Village in 2015, he shot an 85 in the third round and finished in last place by eight strokes. So who knows what's going to happen. The older Woods gets, the more volatile his play will seem. He will have egregious rounds, and he will have "wait, did he just shoot 65 at The Players?" rounds. There will be a lot in between, too.

But if you're looking for spots for a Tiger win in 2018 to bump him from 79 to 80 on the all-time PGA Tour list, I have to think this week's Memorial is at the very top of the list. Woods is simply running out of other winnable events. 

The goal this year was likely never to actually win a golf tournament but rather just to play in a dozen or more. The problem now, though, is that Woods is ahead of schedule and expectations have been reset both for himself and for the general public.

"There's no way I would have predicted I would be at this point the beginning of the year," Woods said at The Players. "The way I was just coming back and just trying to get a feel for it and then hopefully have a schedule. Didn't know. But now I feel like I've got my playing feels and I'm playing tournament golf and I've got it ... I'm not that far off from winning golf tournaments."

Might that first one come at Muirfield Village in six days? Woods is a 22-1 favorite and among the group the includes Rose, Fowler and Henrik Stenson. Woods has always transcended what we thought (or even wagered money on what) he would do. A win in 2018 would fall into that category, but if it doesn't come soon, we might have to wait until 2019.