The players are faced with a very different test of golf this week as the PGA tour moves to Harbour Town Golf Links in South Carolina for the Verizon Heritage Championship.
Length and strength are not required at this Pete Dye designed golf course, a Par 71, measuring just 6,973 yards from the championship tees.
Harbour Town is a tree lined course with narrow fairways and only three par fives. It is not a course that can be bullied.
The narrow fairways demand accuracy off the tee. Jim Furyk once said: "there is no place tighter on tour."
There is little rough to penalise the players but the wayward will find themselves in trouble amongst the trees. There are overhanging trees on many holes which means the players also need to find the correct areas on the fairways to attack the pins.
This course has the smallest greens on tour and as with all Pete Dye courses the emphasis is on the second shot.
Players need to shape all types of shots into the greens and Ernie Els described it as: "a great ball-striker's course where you've got to play good tidy aggressive golf."
The extraordinary thing about this course is that despite its woodland nature it is very susceptible to the wind.
It is the wind rather than the small greens that affect the scoring.
In 2005 10-15mph winds with gusts up to 30mph wreaked havoc with the average score which ended up at 73.246 or 2.246 over par.
Yet in 2003 there was only a slight breeze and the average score was 70.621 or .379 under par.
The forecast this year is for a slight breeze on Thursday and Friday reaching 5-10 mph on Friday afternoon - so expect scoring to be good over the first two days.
The wind will pick up a little on Saturday and blow 10-15mph which will test the player's ball striking skills a little more.
With a light wind forecast for Sunday the winning score will reach double digits this year.
Below are the hole averages from 2007.
HoleYardsParSc AvRank
141044.1109250254.44918343744.1734420033.1357553054.52617641944.1109719533.1158847044.2612933244.008143,4953635.8871044444.083111143644.14561243044.048121337344.038131419233.26811557154.890161639544.005151718533.15851845244.25333,4783535.888716,97371.75
The par three's present a very serious challenge this week.
They are not the brutish 220 plus yards that are becoming increasingly common on the tour. These are holes that test the mind particularly the fourth, fourteenth and seventeenth.
The fourth (ranked seventh) is a carry over water, with the water very much in play when the pin is on the left hand side of the green.
The fourteenth is the most difficult hole on the course and is very similar to the fourth requiring a tee shot over water. There is a bail out area on the left hand side but that still leaves a testing chip shot to successfully get up and down.
The seventeenth (ranked fifth) requires a shot of the highest precision to find the right spot on the small slopey green.
Any player keeping big numbers off their card by negotiating the par three's in or under par should go close to winning the coveted Tartan Jacket.
