TOUR SCENE:PÁDRAIG HARRINGTON and Rory McIlroy, suitably refreshed from a week away from the demands of tournament play, dip their toes into the water at this week's Shell Houston Open ahead of the more turbulent rapids that await players at next week's US Masters, the season's first major where there is the added T-Factor of a certain Mr Woods' return to the tour.

For Harrington and McIlroy, though, the attraction of playing in Houston – in a field which features six of the world’s top-10 players – is an opportunity to hone their respective games in a competitive environment on a course set-up as much as is physically possible, especially around the greens, to mirror the challenges that players will face in Augusta.

Harrington’s last two outings on the US PGA Tour have shown something of a return to form, contending in two tournaments – the WGC-CA Championship and the Transitions – before finishing in tied-3rd and tied-8th in what could be construed as working his way into form ahead of the major test next week.

Having spent much of the past week on what he called “maintenance, nothing too major”, Harrington is sticking with a schedule that normally sees him play the week before a major championship.

Although, if past evidence is anything to go by, it would seem that the Dubliner uses the Houston tournament as final preparation for the Masters: he has finished tied-26th on each of the past two years, while his best ever finish at the Redstone course came with a modest tied-24th in 2007.

McIlroy, meanwhile, made his first appearance in Houston last year ahead of a debut at the Masters. He finished tied-19th on that occasion, and he resumes playing stateside – where he has taken up his tour card option – after a relatively lukewarm start to his season there which has seen him finish tied-17th (Accenture Matchplay), tied-40th (Honda Classic) and tied-65th (WGC-CA) during which time he has fallen out of the world’s top-10.

More worryingly, perhaps, the 20-year-old Ulsterman has been troubled by a back complaint although he insists that it hasn’t been a huge factor.

With the benefit of two weeks at home, during which he has combined some rest and down time with practising, McIlroy will – like Harrington – aim to get his game into proper order ahead of a return visit to Augusta.

McDowell, despite missing the cut in the weather-hampered Bay Hill Invitational, has decided to stick with his original intention to give Houston a miss and instead concentrate on working on his short game ahead of the Masters. It will be McDowell’s third appearance in the Masters, having missed the cut in 2005 but improving to a tied-17th finish last year which left him agonisingly one spot outside of an automatic invite.

However, his second-place finish to Jim Furyk in the Chevron World Challenge prior to Christmas brought him back into the world’s top-50 and earned him an invite through that avenue.

Two other players, meanwhile, can include Augusta in their travel itineraries after the weekend’s tournaments: South African Louis Oosthizen’s win in the Andalucian Open lifted him into the world’s top-50 for the final cut-off point which came at the conclusion of yesterday’s Bay Hill tournament, while Korean KJ Choi – who was 74th in the world before his runner-up finish in the Transitions two weeks ago – also stayed there.

As things stand, there are likely to be 98 players in the Masters field, making it the highest number of players since 103 competitors featured back in 1966.

And, in a sign of the changing times on the US Tour, it will be the fourth consecutive year that the number of international players will exceed those from the United States.