Things on PGA TOUR about to heat up with Florida Swing

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This week the PGA TOUR heads to PGA National for the Honda Classic.

If anyone doubts the PGA TOUR's season is filled with its own unique pockets, understand this: There were no snowmen standing outside PGA National on Monday.

The sleet, snow and hailstorm that showed up Sunday in Arizona on the final day of the West Coast Swing at the WGC-Accenture Match Play Championship are replaced by swaying palm trees, gentle breezes and temperatures that moved into the low 80s in Palm Beach Gardens, Fla.

Yes, the Florida Swing, which kicks off this week with the amped-up Honda Classic, will never be confused with the early-season West Coast Swing. And we're not just talking about poa annua greens being replaced by Bermuda, the absence of local early finishes and the good times of pro-am formats at the Bob Hope Classic and the AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am.

This is when the PGA TOUR gets even more serious.

"The first few weeks on TOUR there's a little bit of a feeling of, 'Where does my game stack up?'" said England's Justin Rose, who shot a final round 64 to finish third at Honda last year, no doubt a precursor to his two victories later in 2010.

But by the Florida Swing, "There's almost no more excuses," Rose said. "Your game should be in good shape."

There's certainly no doubting the shape of Rose's European mates. Fellow Englishman Luke Donald's victory Sunday over new No. 1 Martin Kaymer at Match Play has enabled Europe to take over the top four spots in the Official World Golf Ranking for the first time since 1992. (Ian Woosnam was No. 1 then, followed by Nick Faldo, Jose Maria Olazabal and Seve Ballesteros).

Now it's Kaymer, Lee Westwood, Donald and Graeme McDowell at the top of the world pecking order. The last three will all be at PGA National to play the highly-respected Champion course, which has hosted a PGA Championship and a Ryder Cup. It has averaged a winning score of 7.75 under par in the four years since it returned to the Jack Nicklaus-redesigned layout.

Honda officials were astute enough to offer two of their sponsor exemptions to Westwood and No. 7 Rory McIlroy, who both decided not to take PGA TOUR membership this year. Honda has thus landed one of its best-ever fields, with seven of the world's top-ranked 13 players, including previous Honda winners Donald (2006), No. 10 Matt Kuchar (2002) and No. 11 Ernie Els (2008).

The Honda Classic has recently proven to be quite a launching pad. In 2006, Mark Wilson won a four-way playoff; today he's atop the FedExCup standings after winning twice on the West Coast. And in 2009, few had heard of Y.E. Yang when he won at Honda; five months later, everyone had heard of Yang when he became the first player to catch Tiger Woods in a major when he ran him down at the PGA Championship.

But if we have learned anything on the West Coast Swing, it's to expect the unexpected. Who would have thought Wilson, at 5-foot-8 and 145 pounds, would be standing so tall? Or that Jhonattan Vegas and D.A. Points would be winning at Hope and Pebble, respectively, to earn their first invitations to the Masters? Or that Nick Watney would have the lowest scoring average?

If the PGA TOUR's schedule was a football game, we would just be getting to the end of the first quarter. The next three weeks, when the PGA TOUR heads to Miami for the World Golf Championships-Cadillac Championship at TPC Blue Monster, then the Transitions Championship at Innisbrook and the Arnold Palmer Invitational at Bay Hill, will certainly provide more twists and turns. (The TOUR does briefly step out of the country for the Puerto Rico Open opposite the WGC event.)

The last four events at TPC Blue Monster have produced world-class winners: Woods, Geoff Ogilvy, Phil Mickelson and Els. Ditto for Bay Hill, with Woods winning twice and Els and Vijay Singh once each in the last four years. There have been no slouches at Innisbrook, either, with Jim Furyk, Retief Goosen, Sean O'Hair, Mark Calcavecchia and K.J. Choi hoisting the last five trophies.

The courses are no pushovers. The Champion, with its tough closing stretch that includes the three-hole Bear Trap, played the second-toughest on TOUR last year, with an average score of 1.6 over the par of 70. Bay Hill was ninth (.892) and Innisbrook's Copperhead was 13th at .792. These are no putting contests.

Greg Norman famously once said he didn't think the golf season truly started until the PGA TOUR reached Florida. That is obviously no longer the case, because the West Coast Swing has been greatly enhanced in recent years.

But the players admit things become a bit more serious as the temperatures rise.

"When you hit the Florida Swing, I think you realize that Augusta is just around the corner," said Hunter Mahan, a two-time TOUR winner in 2010 said. "Florida kind of symbolizes the beginning of the 'majors' season. It's when you want your game to start peaking, and you realize the season's really under way."

It's when things heat up both on and off the course.

Craig Dolch is a freelance columnist for PGATOUR.COM. His views do not necessarily represent the views of the PGA TOUR.