The PGA Tour enjoys a strong-field week as it returns to Arnold Palmer’s annual Bay Hill Invitational, while the E Tour breaks ground with its first visit to Korea.  Lorena Ochoa hosts a lighter-than-expected field at the MasterCard Classic and the Champions remain in Southern California…but in the end, most eyes will surely focus on Bay Hill…

PGA Tour:  Arnold Palmer Invitational – Orlando, FL

The PGA Tour moves to central Florida this week for the 43rd playing of the Arnold Palmer Invitational, an event which began life in 1966 as the Florida Citrus Open, and which has been played at Bay Hill since 1979.  This year’s field will be the third strongest (behind the WGC-Match Play and the Northern Trust Open) of the young 2008 season, with 14 of the world’s top 25 in attendance, highlighted by numbers one and two, Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson (#3 Ernie Els was a late withdrawal).  As if Woods isn’t enough of a favorite already, he won at Bay Hill for four consecutive years from 2000-2003, and is presumably extra familiar with the course from his times living at nearby Isleworth.  Among the 12 additional top-25s slated to play are defending champion Vijay Singh (who edged Rocco Mediate by two a year ago) and 23-year-old German Martin Kaymer, the lone under-25 in the world top 50 who will be making his PGA Tour debut this week.  The 7,239-yard, par-70 Bay Hill course is a much-renovated 1961 Dick Wilson design fairly typical of the region, relying, by necessity, far more on sand and water than any natural subtleties of the flat Florida landscape.  It is a layout widely known for its difficult finishers, primarily the 485-yard par-4 16th (a converted par 5), the 219-yard, watery 17th and the 441-yard 18th, whose green curves nearly 90 degrees around the corner of a rock-lined pond.  TV viewers can consider themselves lucky, as these are among the three most interesting holes on a solid – but hardly spectacular – layout.

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European & Asian PGA Tours:  Ballantine’s Championship – Jeju Island, Korea

The European Tour makes its final Far Eastern stop this week at the inaugural Ballantine’s Championship, a tournament co-sanctioned with the Asian Tour and the first E Tour event ever to be played in South Korea.  With the majority of the world top 25 spending the week in Florida, the field is relatively lean here, though bright lights include world #5 K.J. Choi (admirably making the long journey home for the occasion) and #10 Padraig Harrington (whose reasons for choosing this over Bay Hill are anyone’s guess).  Adding more flavor is an eclectic mix of round-the-worlders which includes Denmark’s Thomas Bjorn, South Africa’s David Frost, Japan’s Shingo Katayama, Americans Chris DiMarco and Anthony Kim, Scotland’s Sandy Lyle (tired of the Champions Tour already?) and the Philippine’s ageless wonder Frankie Minoza.  The event is being played on Jeju Island, a scenic volcanic landmass located well south of the Korean peninsula.  The host Pinx Country Club’s 7,361-yard, par-72 course was designed by the late Ted Robinson and appears to have a bit more substance to it than most of the prolific American’s sterile – but waterfall-laden – stateside creations.

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LPGA Tour:  Mastercard Classic – Huixquilucan, Mexico

The LPGA makes its fourth start of 2008 (all outside of the continental United States) by journeying south of the border to the fourth playing of the MasterCard Classic just outside of Mexico City.  Needless to say, world number one Lorena Ochoa will be the event’s centerpiece, largely because she is one of Mexico’s greatest sporting heroes, but also because after whipping the field at Singapore’s HSBC Champions event by 11, she is fast approaching a Tiger-like degree of dominance.  Unfortunately, Ochoa stands alone among the world elite in playing here, as two-time winner Annika Sorenstam, Suzann Petterssen, Paula Creamer, Karrie Webb and Cristie Kerr are all taking the week off.  The host Bosque Real Country Club is a tough and rolling 2002 Robert von Hagge design with some predictable gimmickry (an island green at the par-5 ninth, for example) and long enough walks between greens and tees that golf carts have generally been afforded even LPGA players and caddies.  But like most von Hagge designs, it is by no means dull, its 6,876 yards providing plenty of test, even at 7,400’ of altitude.

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Champions Tour:  AT&T Champions Classic – Valencia, CA

The Champions Tour returns to one of its longer-running events this week, for the AT&T Champions Classic has existed, under various names, since 1990, initially being played at Los Angeles’s venerable Rancho Park and the  Wilshire Country Club before moving to the distant northern suburb of Valencia.  Tom Purtzer is the defending champion and will face the standard weekly Champions field, plus a pair of notable older entries, four-time Major champion Raymond Floyd and 1997 U.S. Senior Open winner Graham Marsh.  Design critics frequently pan the 6,973-yard Valencia Country Club, but the Robert Trent Jones design does have its share of stimulating holes, particularly down the stretch where the 523-yard 15th and 198-yard 16th are water-guarded, and the 546-yard 18th plays long and uphill.  And besides, organizers should be commended for not moving the event across the street (the 5 Freeway, actually) to the site fee-free TPC Valencia, which would really be bad.

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Elsewhere...

Toshimi Kimura is the defending champion as the Japan LPGA Tour plays its second event, the Accordia Golf Ladies Open, at the Quingdao Golf Club in Miyazaki Prefecture.   In America, the women’s developmental Futures Tour begins their 2008 circuit at the Bright House Networks Open, in Lakeland, Florida.