Dean Wilson hopes to parlay his best start since joining the PGA Tour into accomplishing his lifelong dream of playing in the Masters. He has had Georgia on his mind ever since he first watched the tournament on television as a kid in Kane'ohe.

The odds of making it to Augusta National Golf Club are against Wilson, 36, the only Hawai'i native on the PGA Tour. But it's not for the lack of effort on his part.

Starting with the Sony Open in Hawai'i where he missed the cut, Wilson has played in nine straight tournaments going into the Bay Hill Invitational starting today.

With top-10 finishes in the FBR Open and the Nissan Open, Wilson has earned $399,897 to rank 37th on this year's money list.

It's quite a fast start for the usually slow-starting Wilson, who is in his fourth full year on the tour.

In his first nine events in 2005, when he posted his career-best $821,903 to finish 102nd on the money list, Wilson earned $149,586. And he didn't play in his ninth event last year until the first week of May.

If anything, Wilson said that is the reason for his fine start this year.

"I'm getting in more tournaments because of my improved status," said Wilson, who finished out of the top-125 money list in 2004 and couldn't get into a lot of tournaments, including Bay Hill and the Players Championship last year.

So he's looking forward to teeing it up at Arnold Palmer's event this week and the Players Championship, golf's "fifth" major next week at TPC Sawgrass in Ponte Vedra, Fla.

"I'm also hitting the ball better. And things are coming together for me," added Wilson, crediting golf instructors Andy Plummer and Mike Bennett for fine-tuning his game.

The next two weeks are important if Wilson has any hopes of joining David Ishii as the only professionals from Hawai'i ever to play in the Masters. Competing as amateurs, Guy Yamamoto and Stan Souza are the only two other local golfers who've had that opportunity.

"That would be great," Wilson said about playing in the Masters. "It's a tournament I've always dreamed of playing in."

He did get to play a practice round at Augusta National with 2003 Masters champion Mike Weir, his college golf teammate at Brigham Young University. But it's not the same deal.

Last week's Honda Classic, in which he earned $50,600 in tying for 23rd place, was a good tune up for the Masters if he ever gets there, according to Wilson.

"That course was tough. A lot of the greens (at Augusta) are like the ones we just played, elevated with a lot of dropoffs. And you had to contend with the wind, which was blowing 25 miles per hour. I chipped with six different clubs — all four wedges, a 5-iron and a 6-iron."

Short of winning his first tour event, a more realistic opportunity for Wilson to qualify for the Masters would be by earning enough money in the next two events to crash the season's top-10 money list.

If that doesn't happen, look for Wilson to play in the Atlanta BellSouth Classic at the end of the month for his 12th consecutive tournament before taking a reluctant week off, just watching the Masters on TV.

Again.

"It depends how I'm feeling," said Wilson, regarding when he'll take his first break of the year. "I don't have to be anywhere. I don't have to be home (Las Vegas)."

The ideal scenario, he says, is doing exceedingly well in the Bay Hill Invitational and the Players Championship so that he can skip Atlanta and rest up for the Masters.

No matter what, playing 11 or 12 events in a row can be tiring, even for Wilson, a workaholic, whose best tour finish is a tie for third in the 2004 Valero Texas Open.

"It's a long haul," says Wilson, who remembers once playing 14 or 15 tournaments without a break on the Japan PGA Tour.

"You just can't take a week off and fly back home to (Las) Vegas or Hawai'i. It's just as tiring, so you might just as well play," said Wilson, a six-time winner on the Japan circuit.

In much the same way, Wilson continues to play on and on this year without let-up. Especially with that goal of making it to the Masters in mind.