By Vartan Kupelian
Special to PGATOUR.com

GRAND BLANC, Mich. -- On that fateful day back in 1999, Mike Weir gathered himself after a final-round 80 at Medinah Country Club in the PGA Championship and vowed, "I'll be back again."

Two weeks later, Weir kept his promise when he won his first PGA TOUR title at the Air Canada Championship.

Next week, he keeps the other part of that promise when he returns to Medinah for another PGA Championship.

Weir, the 36-year-old Canadian who lives in Draper, Utah, knows he's a far better golfer than he was seven years ago and is bolstered by a solid performance at last week's Buick Open. Weir, who is originally from Sarnia, Ontario, across the Blue Water Bridge from Port Huron, Michigan, tied for 20th with a 14-under-par 274 at Warwick Hills.

The collapse at Medinah in 1999 is something young golfers go through. He was tied for the lead with Tiger Woods entering the final round but couldn't hold on and wound up tied for 10th.

The important part is that it didn't keep Weir down for long. He bounced back in a big way, better and wiser and more proficient at his craft. Weir finally reached the mountaintop when he won the 2003 Masters.

Weir fired a 9-under 63 in the first round at Warwick Hills Golf & Country Club. It matched his best round of the year, at the AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am. He finished third there and now focuses on his next crack at the Wanamaker Trophy.

Weir visited Medinah in July for a preview.

"The course is longer and they have made some changes to the greens on a number of holes," he said. "They made some changes around the greens. Instead of deep rough right off the edge, they have a lot of mown grass so they made significant changes out there.

"The finishing holes -- 17 and 18 -- are totally different holes."

That's life. Things change. They evolve. So do golfers.

"A lot's happened in four years," Weir said. "I've won some tournaments and lost some tournaments, like most of us out here, but I think my game is probably better than it was in 2002. I'm not just saying that. … I've put a ton of work no my game the last few years, and I've showed some good success, but not as consistent as I'd like."

He believes the Buick Open was a step in the right direction and Weir has no misgivings about what happened at Medinah.

"That was a great experience for me," he said. "That was the first time, obviously my second year on TOUR, and the year before, I had lost my card so I'd just kind of got back through Q-School. That was a good learning experience. I had my first win two weeks after that, so it was an important lesson to learn that week."

Weir's collapse at Medinah was the result of some serious putting problems. Four years later he won at Augusta National Golf Club with an uncanny display of putting. He didn't miss anything he needed to make that week in Georgia.

"I think overall my putting has been pretty good this year, but I think it still needs to gain a little bit more consistency," he said. "So I've been working extremely hard on that for a while.

"I've spent some extra time on that, and my overall short game. Just the little shots around the greens, the two or three shots that maybe I've wasted in the last few weeks, I've noticed that it adds up at the end of the week. Through four rounds, that's 10 or 12 shots that I've wasted. I've just really tried to sharpen my short game."