It’s the countdown for the 2010 majors, if you like: The World Golf Championships-CA Championship at TPC Blue Monster at Doral in Florida will give us the first close look at the world’s top players playing against each other in a stroke play event close enough to the Masters to be meaningful.

And even if Number One won’t be there this week, the reports about Tiger Woods giving the poor residents of the gated community of Isleworth a hard time with a private security company reporting the registration plates of any car which gets too close to him show that it won’t be long before he’s back.

Still, nobody knows for sure exactly when that will be, but it seems ever more probable that he will play somewhere before the Masters and then make his full re-emergence at Augusta.

But, for now, there will be players who will be curious to see how much they will have improved when Number One comes back – and who will harbour a belief that if he is in fact back at Augusta, they may have reached a level where they can administer a smart smack down.

On the Blue Monster, four of those players are South Africans. Two have won majors already; one is the richest player never to have won a tournament on the US PGA Tour; and the fourth flexed his superstar muscles on the Sunshine Tour’s co-sanctioned events at the beginning of the year.

Ernie Els is one of two players in the field who knows what it’s like to outrank Woods. Vijay Singh is the other, and he’s so much further than Els on the far side of 40 that he’s not that realistic a consistent contender any more.

And, but for an aberration in his form for 2010 at last week’s Honda Classic, Els is looking more serene on the course than he has for some years. Maturity becomes him.

“I went into The Honda Classic with a lot of optimism, with it being virtually a home tournament for me and having won here a couple of years ago,” he wrote in his weekly blog on his website.

“Obviously, a tie for 67th tells you pretty much all you need to know about my performance. I had spells of good play, but in the tough windy conditions my game was too inconsistent. To be honest, there’s not much more to say, other than you just move on and look forward to your next tournament.”

The Blue Monster also becomes him: “It’s another golf course I’ve won on before, back in 2002, so I’ll go in with some good vibes,” he wrote.

“I love the straightforward playability of this golf course. It’s a well-balanced test. You need to be able to work the ball and have all the shots to score well.”

It’s been a while since he won, but the self-belief is coming back: “My game’s been in decent shape this year, so there’s no reason why I can’t shrug off last week’s play and really step it up here at TPC Blue Monster at Doral. That’s my intention.”

Retief Goosen has been as impressive as Els this year: He’s played four events on the US PGA Tour this year, made three cuts (one of those was not a “cut” per se, but a share of fifth in the WGC-Accenture World Match Play Championship) and finished in the top 10 in all three.

He was also in the top 10 in the Qatar Masters on the European Tour, so there is a vein of form he will be keen to exploit.

Tim Clark has hardly been less convincing in 2010: A share of second in the Bob Hope Classic, and two more top 10s has him at 16th in the current FedEx Cup rankings.

But it’s the performance of Charl Schwartzel which most South African fans will watch closely: His back-to-back wins in the Africa Open and the Joburg Open cast light on the level of his ability, and he rocketed into the world’s top 50.

Just two or three more impressive performances – and perhaps another win – and it’s not inconceivable that he could finish the year as South Africa’s top-ranked player.