PALM HARBOR, Fla. -- This is an important week for Adam Scott, if for no other reason than to see his game heading in the proper direction with the year's first major championship approaching.

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During the CA Championship last week, 60 of the 80 players in the field finished the week under par. Adam Scott wasn't one of them, as the Aussie finished T-66 at Doral.

While the majority of his top-20-in-the-world colleagues are taking the week off, Scott is playing the Transitions Championship after a lackluster performance at the CA Championship, where he tied for 66th out of 80 players.

The Masters is just three weeks away, and this is one of just two tournaments he will play before heading to Augusta National.

"This place is really good. I think it's good preparation for Augusta," Scott said of Innisbrook's Copperhead course, where Sean O'Hair is the defending champion. "It has a lot of movement off the tee, a lot of slope on the fairways. You have to hit some shots, and it's a challenging track. I really like the golf course, and it's probably going to be really tough. I'm looking forward to it."

There is certainly no reason to look back.

Scott, 28, is doing his best to put a disappointing 2008 season behind him. Although he won the Byron Nelson Championship and rose to No. 3 in the world behind Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson in time for the U.S. Open, not much has gone right since.

A bout with tonsillitis, a broken finger, a dislocated knee cap, a breakup with a longtime girlfriend ...

"I'm trying to forget last year," said Scott, who skipped two events in his native Australia before Christmas due to the right knee issue, which he said still gives him some issues. "Nothing was really going my way. I felt I was doing everything right, especially in Australia, playing really good. It didn't really work out. At the moment, the way I'm preparing, I'm looking forward to April."

Scott's preparation seems curious, although he says it has all been done as part of a plan to be rested and ready. After playing the first three weeks of the year, including two tournaments in Hawaii (where he tied for second at the Sony Open,) Scott headed to the Middle East. There he teed it up in the Qatar Masters, where he was defending champion and tied for 21st. Scott has played just two times since.

He got bounced after the first round of the Accenture Match Play Championship, then never broke 70 in four rounds at Doral, where Mickelson's winning score was 19 under par.

"I feel pretty good with how I'm coming along," said Scott, who for the first time decided to rent a place in Florida so he could cut down on travel before the Masters. "I've been working on a few things in my swing which haven't come along on the golf course right yet. I've hit enough good shots to say I'm on the right track. I'm trying to sharpen myself up the next few weeks before Augusta."

After the Transitions -- where he tied for 35th in 2005 and missed the cut in 2006 -- Scott is scheduled to play next week's Arnold Palmer Invitational before taking a week off prior to the Masters.

He also hopes to get in some more work with instructor Butch Harmon, whom he worked with at Doral and the Match Play.

"He struggled last year," Harmon said. "He had some personal issues. He had some health issues. He had the knee problem. The knee was bothering him at the beginning of the year. But that's not really the problem. He's been trying to get it strong. ... He just can't seem to get anything going. He's happy with the way he's swinging the golf club. I'm happy with the way he's swinging and playing. He just needs to see some good things happen."

Scott owns six PGA Tour titles (seven if you include the L.A. Open from 2005, which was considered unofficial because just 36 holes were played due to weather.) He's won 14 times worldwide but has dropped to No. 20 in the world from his high of third last summer. And he has never seriously contended in a major championship, his best showing a tie for third at the 2006 PGA Championship, where he was well behind Woods.

Perhaps being a bit under the radar this year due to his rather ordinary play of late will be a benefit, although Scott in no way shies away from Masters talk.

"You have to take each week as an individual week, but you can't help but look ahead and see how you want to be feeling and prepared for Augusta," he said. "That's what I live for. I think I've got a good plan. … [Doral] was a little frustrating, as I made several big numbers. I had several doubles and triples. I'm trying to work on the golf course. I've got a little ways to go."

It's Ryo's world

There was no difficulty figuring out where Ryo Ishikawa was Tuesday at Innisbrook -- on the golf course. The reason you know this is the several dozen seats assigned to Japanese media members were not occupied. That means they were all on the Copperhead course following Ishikawa -- and the 17-year-old draws a crowd.

Ishikawa, who has already won two events on the Japan Tour, including one as a 15-year-old amateur, is such a story in his homeland that when he showed up in Tucson, Ariz., three weeks ago for the Accenture Match Play -- as an alternate -- he still had several dozen media members chronicling every move -- despite not even getting into the field.

He went home to Japan after that because he had to attend school. Though Ryo does most interviews in Japanese with a translator, he made an opening statement in English in which he wished everyone a happy St. Patrick's Day and said he was pleased to return because he "missed American hamburgers."

Ishikawa arrived in Florida last week and has been playing practice rounds every day. His sponsor exemption at the Transitions is his second, following a missed cut at the Northern Trust Open. He is also getting one next week at the Arnold Palmer Invitational and has also received a special invitation to the Masters, where he will be joined by a couple of other teenagers, Northern Ireland's Rory McIlroy and New Zealand's Danny Lee.

A look at this week's venue

Innisbrook's Copperhead course has quickly become regarded as one of the best and toughest on the PGA Tour. Last year it ranked eighth-most difficult in relation to par, and typically draws raves from players for its conditioning and un-Florida-like terrain. Sean O'Hair won last year's tournament with a total of 280, which was just 4-under on the par-71 layout.

The Copperhead has four par-5s and five par-3s, including three on the back nine. And the par-4 16th -- a 419-yard dogleg around water -- ranked as the 15th-most difficult hole on tour last year, playing .419 over par.

The PGA Tour first began playing at Innisbrook in 1990, when the now-defunct JCPenney Classic (an offseason mixed-team event) moved to the Copperhead course, where it stayed through 1999. The venue then got a PGA Tour event, which has gone through a litany of sponsors. The tournament has been known as the Tampa Bay Classic, the Chrysler Championship, the PODS Championship and now the Transitions Championship.

Bob Harig covers golf for ESPN.com. He can be reached at BobHarig@gmail.com.