Bay Hill, with Augusta on their mind

Tiger Woods wants to get back into a groove in the first round of the Bay Hill Invitational, his first stroke-play tournament in a month.

"It's just a matter of testing my skills on the fire again," Woods said.

Lee Westwood, on the other hand, is simply trying to strike the match. The 25-year-old Englishman is typical of several European players who have arrived in Florida to start their march to Augusta National and the Masters.

While Woods, Mark O'Meara, Vijay Singh and a bevy of others have been playing since January, Westwood comes into Bay Hill with exactly seven rounds under his belt -- four in the Dubai Desert Classic, two in Malaysia (he missed the cut) and one in the Match Play Championship, where Eduardo Romero knocked him off in the first round.

"I haven't played much this year, so I need to get some confidence and get some kind of a roll going," Westwood said.

Ditto for Seve Ballesteros, who continues to struggle with consistency off the tee. Late Wednesday afternoon, Ballesteros was on the far right side of the driving range and hit a driver into the bushes lining the left side.

"No good," the Spaniard muttered to himself.

Whether they have played a lot or a little, whether they live in Orlando or are coping with jet lag from a flight across the Atlantic, most of the players at Bay Hill share one thing in common -- Augusta National is not far from their minds.

While the road to the Masters traditionally starts at Doral, it is a little shorter this year.

"Quite a few of the European guys have come," defending champion Ernie Els said Wednesday. "This is probably the run-up for the Masters now."

Don't get the idea that Bay Hill is simply four days of fine-tuning for either The Players Championship next week or the Masters the second week in April. History will show that Fred Couples is the only player who has won Bay Hill and the Masters in the same year, and no one has ever won the Players and Masters in the same year.

But as strong as fields are these days, as deep as the talent runs around the globe, there's no use waiting a month to get the game in shape.

"I don't want to think about the Masters until I really get there," Els said. "We've got most of the best players here. Next week we call the fifth major -- probably the best field you'll find throughout the year.

"I've tried to really just get myself in good shape and not go as hard. You can't do that anymore," he said. "I think you waste your time to come out here and just work on your game instead of really giving it a big shot. I'm going to try to have a good week."

The only top 10 players missing from Arnold Palmer's tournament are David Duval, who usually takes most of Florida off and has only played Bay Hill once in the past three years, and Nick Price, whose kids are on spring break this week.

Besides Greg Norman, resting his shoulder for a three-week run that starts next week, the only other absentee worth noting this week is Fluff Cowan. Woods fired his caddie earlier this month and replaced him with Steve Williams, who used to work for Norman a decade ago and most recently Raymond Floyd.

"I've told him things I want and expect, and he tells me how he likes it," Woods said. "It's going to be great. He's very professional, and that's what I've always wanted and always admired about him."

So how does a caddie go from the senior tour (Floyd) to one of the longest players on the PGA Tour?

"He caddied for Norman, and at the time Greg probably hit his irons almost as far as I do now," Woods said. "So he remembers back to those days.''

It doesn't take much for Els to remember what happened last year at Bay Hill.

Because of the rain, the final 36 holes were played on Sunday with a threesome that included three of the four major championship winners -- Els, Woods and Davis Love III -- in the last group.

Els shot a 65 to take control and went on to a 4-stroke victory. Woods and Love finished a dozen strokes back.

"I want to have some good vibes from last year," Els said.

Els has a chance to become only the second player to repeat as Bay Hill champion in its 21-year history. Loren Roberts won in 1994-95.