The £1.5 million BellSouth Classic starting in Atlanta today gives the European players their last chance to prepare for the first major of the season - the Masters at Augusta. Despite the opportunity to prepare, two of the sport's biggest names, Tiger Woods and Greg Norman, will be missing.
Woods has decided to stay home in Orlando to practise for Augusta, while Norman has what his wife, Laura, describes as a virus. Norman also missed the tournament last year while recovering from shoulder surgery.
New world number one David Duval is one player who is taking part and he fronts a field that includes Colin Montgomerie, Ian Woosnam, Fred Couples, Davis Love, and Nick Faldo. For Faldo it is a particularly important build-up to the first major of the year. Despite slumping to an all-time low of 97th in the world rankings and being disqualified from the Tour Players' Championship when lying next-to-last on Sunday, Faldo has not lost faith in himself to turn things round.
He remembers that going into the 1996 Masters, all was not well either.
"I practised so badly that at lunch on Wednesday I put my clubs down and said to Fanny (his caddie Fanny Sunesson) that I'd be back with a new game and a new head," recalled the 41-year-old.
"But I shot a first-round 68 and off I went." With a day to go he was lying second, six strokes behind Greg Norman, and when the Australian collapsed to a closing 78, Faldo pounced with a 67 to win his third green jacket by five shots.
"Technically, I know my game is really good, and I don't rule myself out from being able to contend next week," he added.
Faldo's key thought this week as he starts the repair job on his career is, strange as it may sound, to forget the idea of hitting the ball straight.
"I used to manoeuvre it around and when I tried to do that again in practice yesterday, it was way better."
He did that last week and with a four-under-par outward 32, shared the lead. But although it did not last, and he equalled his worst-ever round in America with his Saturday 83, Faldo is not reading too much into that.
Duval's win on Sunday took him to world number one for the first time. Everyone agreed it was long overdue after an amazing 10 wins in 33 starts in the last 18 months.
But because he has chosen to play this week and the world rankings are calculated on a points average according to how many tournaments a player has appeared in, Duval needs to finish in the top 12 to stay ahead of Woods going to Augusta.
