PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Fla. -- A year ago this past Monday, Jason Gore was trying to qualify for the Chitimacha Louisiana Open on the Nationwide Tour.

When he didn’t make it, Gore went home to his wife and 5-month-old son in Valencia, Calif., and watched on TV as Fred Funk won THE PLAYERS Championship that weekend.

“And I think I was watching it going, ‘Gosh, these guys are good. I don’t think I can ever compete with them,’” Gore recalled.

On Tuesday the same man who harbored those doubts a year ago had a 6:45 a.m. date with the game’s No. 1 player, Tiger Woods, on the Stadium Course at TPC Sawgrass. On Thursday, Gore, who won the 84 LUMBER Classic in just his fourth PGA TOUR start last year, will play in his first PLAYERS Championship.

“It just shows you how great a game this is,” the affable Gore said Tuesday. “That little white ball doesn’t know or care who you are. You just have to tell it where to go.”

Gore actually came to Ponte Vedra 11 days ago to play two practice rounds, including one with Jim Furyk, Joe Ogilvie, Mark Wilson and Rob Bradley. It was his first look at the Stadium Course where he’d watched players like Greg Norman and Fred Couples win.

“I was -- am -- a huge Freddy fan, not unlike a lot of people in the world,” Gore said. “I just remember him winning with Tom Watson’s wife’s 3-wood (in 1996) and once he found out what it was, he couldn’t hit it anymore. I thought that was hilarious.”

Gore asked Woods, whom he’s known since their junior golf days, for some tips during their practice round with Sean O’Hair on Tuesday. Woods’ answer was simple, Gore reported -- just hit a lot of fairways and make a lot of putts.

“This is a wonderful golf course,” Gore said. “It has a lot of risk-reward and lot of tee shots that are rather uncomfortable, which is exactly the way Pete Dye wanted it. It’s one of those places where you don’t always have to fire at the flag to get it close to the hole. It makes you think and it also makes you hit it straight.

“It’s a great combination of a bomber’s paradise and a straight hitter’s paradise, and I think that’s great. You can get any kind of player winning here.”

After four practice rounds, Gore feels the course fits his game. He generally drives the ball relatively straight, and he feels he has the control to master some of the unique challenges Dye’s signature creation offers.

“You can’t hit just one shot,” Gore said. “You’ve got to work it around corners like on No. 2 and No. 18. It’s got a lot of character to it, which unfortunately is kind of rare. You can get rewarded for hitting good golf shots and penalized for hitting bad ones – very penalized and very rewarded. I think that’s a great thing.

“If I can put myself in the right place in the fairway to give myself a good shot at the green, that’s step one of the whole chess game. That’s what you have to do around this golf course.”

Gore made a 2 on the treacherous 17th Tuesday. He’s savvy enough, though, to know he hasn’t seen that island-hopper of a hole in its “holy-for-crying-out-loud” mode yet.

“I saw someone make a 13 there (on TV),” Gore said. “And when Tiger made the putt going down the hill (during his win in 2001), he said he was standing on the tee and saw Fred Funk four-putt from the same spot.”

The terrors of the 17th hole notwithstanding, Gore’s anxious to see what happens once the $8 million event begins on Thursday. He’s regained his consistency of late after a start that saw him miss five of his first seven cuts.

Gore finally realized he was putting too much pressure on himself to prove that 2005, when he played in the final pairing of the U.S. Open and won three straight on the Nationwide Tour to earn an instant promotion to the TOUR, was no fluke. He’s got a wife and son who love him no matter whether he shoots 65 or 85, and he needed to just go play the game he loves.

“I think I was falling back into the old, well, gosh if I played bad I’m disappointing everyone,” Gore said. “That couldn’t be farther than the truth. These people are out here rooting for you. … I thought they’d be whispering behind my back (if I didn’t play well).

“You’ve got to go out and do our best. Some days you’ve got it and some days you don’t but you have to be who you are. … It’s still a game. Really the only thing I have to do is prove it to myself, and that’s really the worst critic. “

Told he sounded positively philosophical, Gore grinned. “Am I like zen-ning over here?” He said he changed his attitude at the Chrysler Classic of Tucson after his fourth straight missed cut. He decided to speed up his routine and simplify the game – and he went on to finish seventh.

“I just kind of threw it all up in the air or flushed the toilet of whatever you want to call it,” Gore said. “I’m going to go out and play golf and have fun and not worry about the consequences. It’s just a matter of perspective.

“You have to go out play golf and be patient. Realize the shot you’re hitting at this moment is the most important shot you’re going to hit. It doesn’t matter if it’s a 2-inch putt or the tee shot on 17. They all count as one.

“You try not to let too much affect you. You try to move through life and leave a footprint in the sand and rake your bunkers and replace your divots as you go.”