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By Lauren Deason
PGATOUR.com Editorial Coordinator

PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Fla. -- Things look a little different at TPC Sawgrass since the last time Bobby Wadkins was here.

Bobby Wadkins has scored three Champions Tour wins in the last 12 months. (WireImage)

Of course, Wadkins himself looks a little different too, as over ten years have passed since he participated in THE PLAYERS Championship.

"It's been a long time, and I can use old age as an excuse that I forgot what it was like to be here," Wadkins said. "But you can tell just by what I've saw on TV the last couple of years and remembering the last time that I did play, the greens are going to be the hard part this week."

Early Monday morning, Wadkins, 55, hit the links for a refresher course and paired up with Bill Haas -- 31 years his junior -- for a little practice. Wadkins and Bill's father Jay Haas, a fellow Champions Tour standout, flew in together from last week's FedEx Kinko's Classic in Texas on Sunday night.

"Bill had called him and said that he needed a little lesson, could his father come over," said Wadkins. "I said, well, hell, I'm two years older than your dad. I don't know if that was a good thing or a bad thing."

It can be tough to flip-flop between tours, especially with all the new faces contending and winning on the PGA TOUR recently, but Wadkins will enjoy his catch-up time.

With the Champions Tour off this week, he'll get plenty of opportunities to reunite with TOUR folks while not falling behind on his regular circuit, where he's already won once this year and earned all four of his career victories.

"The few people that I've seen have said they've been keeping up with me, and I've been keeping up with them. I just saw (Steve) Stricker and Tim Herron and they all said, "You've been playing well."

But he's not just here for a little bonding time. He's here to compete, and what he's lacking in length, he can make up for by playing smart, consistent golf.

"I didn't come here to play bad," said Wadkins. "(My brother) Lanny and I grew up giving it 100 percent and that's what we're here to do. My 100 percent might not be what it used to be, but we'll give it the best. I came here to have a good week. I can shake hands with people later."

Wadkins won one of the Champions Tours five majors last year, the 2006 Ford Senior Players Championship. That win allows him to participate in the PGA TOUR's PLAYERS equivalent in 2007, a bonus established last year for the winner of one of the 50-and-up tour's premier events.

It's the same for the 2007 Senior PGA Championship, where the winner gets into the 2007 PGA Championship. Ditto for the British Open, only the 2007 Senior British Open winner will partake in the next year's PGA TOUR edition.

"I think all the guys on the Champions Tour who have been here (at THE PLAYERS) before kind of look at it like it's a great big perk, gives us a chance if we play well to get back and see some people that we haven't seen in a while.

Wadkins:"We used to come in here and make sure we could fish before anybody got here." (WireImage)

"So we're all tickled that it's turned out that way. I get to be the first to kind of represent the Champions Tour, and hopefully we'll have a good week and make a good showing."

Though he contends that he never fared too well at THE PLAYERS in the 20 times he played between 1975-1996, Wadkins did have three top-15 finishes and made $88,902 over that span. It's not his time with the clubs, though, that left him his favorite Sawgrass moments.

"My best memories here are catching some eight-, nine-pound bass alongside No. 18. Bruce Lietzke and Bill Rogers, we used to come in here and make sure we could fish before anybody got here. Now everybody is bringing their trainers and swing doctors and everything and doing that stuff. But that's also why they're shooting 25-under-par each week."

Yeah, things have definitely changed out here. But Wadkins isn't worried about the newness of things. Shoot, he's not thinking about who designed the course or how he's played in the past. He's just going to play some golf.

"You know what, I really don't get into who built it, I just try to get into how I'm playing it," Watkins said. "Just like my fishing rods and my rifles, I don't know anything about them except they shoot straight and they catch fish."

And fishing's one thing that's remained the same, because water still lines the 18th fairway. Some of his friends from his hometown of Richmond, Va. came down this week and packed the gear.

"They brought some tackle down so we might slip out there and catch a few," Watkins said.