HONOLULU — David Toms has been reacquainted with an old friend.

He showed up at the Sony Open with that familiar red-and-white golf bag of Cleveland Golf. Toms likes to say that 11 of his 12 victories came with the club company, including his PGA Championship, three Ryder Cup teams and a World Golf Championship.

But he also knows that what's in his head is just as important as what's in his hands.

"Absolutely, it's wanting to do better," Toms said. "And it's putting the time into doing better. That doesn't mean more time, just more focus when I take time. It's easy to get away from that when you're not playing well. My goal this year is to make it count."

All that counts is who won and that is Zach Johnson.

The former Masters champion went through a dry patch similar to Toms for most of last year until he took a six-week break to evaluate his game and chart his course, then won the Valero Texas Open and Sony Open in a span of six starts.

What was fascinating about the leaderboard at Waialae, however, was the next three players behind him: Toms, Adam Scott and Charles Howell III.

All of them took a big step toward rebounding from a dismal year by their own standards.

Toms tied for second with Scott, who recorded his first top 10 on the PGA Tour since he tied for eighth at the Wachovia Championship last May.

Howell turns 30 this summer, but he already is overlooked when the talks turn to the surge in young players.

Even though he has won twice, has 10 runner-up finishes and played on the Presidents Cup team twice, Howell is coming off the worst season of his career. He was 69th on the money list and he plunged to No. 137 in the world before his fourth-place finish in the Sony Open.

Beyond winning, the immediate goal for Howell is to get into the Masters. He has not missed it since 2001, qualifying in 2007 with a strong West Coast swing that began with a runner-up finish at Waialae.

Toms isn't eligible for the Masters for the first time since '97, and that bugs him.

"Every time I see those previews for the Masters, it drives me crazy," he said. "I'm working toward that."

It's not just Augusta. He also isn't eligible for the Accenture Match Play Championship, which he won four years ago, or even The Players Championship because he finished out of the Top 125 on the money list last year.

Toms took six weeks off during the summer, even skipping the British Open, to restore his health and spend time with his wife and two children.

He didn't record his first top 10 until September and ended the year at No. 116 in the world ranking.

The runner-up finish at the Sony Open bumped him up to No. 76.

Equally important as the result was the ease with which he played. Toms found himself pressing last year in the few opportunities he had. He looked like the old Toms at Waialae, constantly applying pressure without seemingly breaking a sweat.

That's how he used to be. And that's how he wants to be again.




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