Although they might not want to admit it in Palm Harbor, a Gulf of Mexico city just northwest of Tampa, we are in a bit of a lull in the PGA Tour schedule. Lodged between last week’s $12.7 million TPC and next week’s World Golf Championships match play event, with the Masters just three weeks off, we have the Valspar Championship this week. The purse drops by almost half to $6.7 million and the roster of top-end players drops by more than half, from everybody last week to four of the top 10 and seven of the top 20 this week.

Heading the field is Dustin Johnson, who moved back into the no. 1 spot in the Hawley Ratings this week after nearly two months looking up. Johnson has been good over the past four months, winning the WGC Mexico event and the Euro Tour Saudi event last month. Since December he’s had eight appearances and missed the top 10 only twice. He was fifth in TPC and ascended to the no. 1 spot in the ratings, where he has been for 92 of the last 105 weeks, when previous leader Justin Thomas finished mid-pack two events in a row.

In a conversation documented at golfdigest.com, Johnson credited his tenure high in the ratings to work on his short game. “My World Golf Ranking has mostly been somewhere in the top 10,” he said. “But

I wanted to get better, and one area of the game where I could really improve was wedge play. Honestly, before a few years ago, I never practiced it. I mean, I’d hit wedge shots, but I never had a set practice plan. The thing I needed to improve a lot was distance control. … I bought a TrackMan and started charting my carry numbers. Once I knew how far I was hitting these clubs, I was able to come up with a system to improve my distance control.”

Other top choices in the Valspar, not surprisingly, arrive after performing well last week. That includes Jason Day, Tommy Fleetwood, and Jon Rahm, all of whom finished within five strokes of the top. Day is in a stretch with four top-10s and four top-20s in his last nine events, with the only blemish being a withdrawal from the Palmer.

The top statistical categories in correlation with success on the Copperhead course at Innisbrook Resort over the past eight tournaments are greens in regulation, driving distance, and putting. The numbers are fairly similar to those from last week’s event at TPC Sawgrass. And the player whose statistical profile best fits those stats is the same guy from last week, Louis Oosthuizen. Unfortunately for him, there was no magic in the numbers last week when he finished 56th. (Also in the top 5% of the field in course fit last week were Rory McIlroy, the winner, and Justin Rose, in the top 10.) A little bit behind Oosthuizen this week are Day, Wyndham Clark, and Danny Lee, in that order. Farther back, we have Webb Simpson, 2011 winner Gary Woodland, Bud Cauley, and Harold Varner.

Two players who are well into the second half of their careers and who have been playing well lately are Lucas Glover and Jim Furyk. Glover, 39, was once a top-20 player in the ratings. He didn’t show much at TPC but had three straight top-10s coming in. Furyk, 48, once no. 1-ranked, has opened eyes with back-to-back top-10s in TPC and the Honda.

Among the younger crowd, KH Lee, 28, has perked up recently. He had his first career top-10 in the Honda, coming on the heels of respectable finishes at Puerto Rico (35th) and the Genesis (25th). Sungjae Im may be the best of this year’s rookie class. He has two top-10s and two top-20s in 2019 (along with three missed cuts).