ORLANDO -- Dan Forsman has been practicing this week at Orange County National Golf Center in nearby Winter Park. He has been ironing out his putting, and his commitment to swing changes he’s making are starting to pay off, as his 5-under-par 67 Saturday in the Bay Hill Invitational Presented by MasterCard can attest.

The detour to Orange County National also has been good for his heart and soul. They were bruised the last time he visited the place, which was in early December at the final of the PGA TOUR National Qualifying Tournament. Forsman, at 47, found himself having to undertake the six-round grind to regain his playing privileges on the world’s best golf circuit despite five career titles.

When it was all finished Forsman had tied for 33rd and missed out on his card by one stroke despite a gutsy 69-67-69 closing stretch. He’d faced a 25-foot putt for birdie on his 108th and final hole and watched as it burned the edge.

Two inches separated him from comfortably continuing a career that began in 1982.

“It seems like a lifetime ago,” Forsman said of that day from which he is just months removed. “You knew what it meant at the time. It’s a lot of golf to be one shot short. There’s some emotion still there, so going back was cathartic. I felt I could kind of move on now and say, this is who I am now.”

Forsman, of Provo, Utah, has always been the same thoughtful, grateful professional who could play well enough to threaten in a few majors, including the 1994 Masters, where he finished seventh, yet didn’t have qualms about taking precious time off to coach his son’s Little League team.

Because he won here in 1986 by beating Raymond Floyd down the stretch, Forsman earned a spot in this week’s Bay Hill Invitational, and he is making the most of his rare chance to play. Bay Hill marks his third start of ’06, and he missed the cut in his previous two.

“I really don’t know what my schedule is going to look like,” Forsman says.

Last year, playing under similar circumstances, Forsman was able to get into 17 events and made nine cuts to earn $214,135, 190th on the money list. Just two years before he had earned $1.1 million and his career-high of $1.3 million he collected in 2002 when he won the last of his five titles, the 84 LUMBER Classic.

Saturday’s bogey-free round was his lowest of the year, tied his career low at Bay Hill and was just his third sub-70 score at Arnold Palmer’s tournament since 1995. He credits a slightly altered putting technique in which he presses his hands more forward. It allowed him to drain a series of mid-length putts, 12-18 feet, for his five birdies. In addition, he’s been diligently applying the one-plane swing theory that he began implementing last fall.

“I’ve been pretty sloppy. I’ve had too much movement,” Forsman explains. “I think I’m more in control now.”

A swing more in control might give him more control over his future, which truly is now -- always now -- when it comes to golf, the ultimate what-have-you-done-lately sporting pursuit. Forsman sits in the top 20 with 18 holes to play. If he can finish in the top 10, he earns a berth in the next available tournament, which is the BellSouth Classic. That’s the immediate goal. His long-range goals are like anyone else’s goals; he wants to find his game and go out and win again.

“I’ve been doing this a long time, and I admit my desire wanes at times,” Forsman says. But I feel like I’m still competitive. I think I can still play. I’m hopeful. If nothing else, what happened last year (at Q-school) showed me that I’m making progress.”