Can Bubba Watson win third Masters after claiming 10th PGA Tour title?

Bubba Watson splits opinion with his unorthodox swing and pink driver

Bubba Watson's tears of victory in Los Angeles set the seal on the PGA Tour's west coast swing and instantly put Georgia in our minds.

The circuit heads to Florida, Mexico and Texas before Augusta in April, but already we are entitled to start counting down to this year's first major.

Watson has won two Masters tournaments and last week offered conclusive proof that he is back as a genuine force following two winless years.

The most recent of his green jackets came in 2014, the same year the 39-year-old Floridian completed the first of three victories in the city of angels. Make no mistake, like Augusta, LA's Riviera Club suits the unconventional left-hander to a tee.

"He feels very comfortable moving the ball, turning it a lot," said three-time Masters champion and compatriot Phil Mickelson. "That allows him to get to a lot of tucked pins.

"A lot of guys don't feel comfortable doing that and they end up accepting a 15 to 30-footer in the centre of the green. And he ends up making a lot more birdies than a lot of guys.

"I think it's the reason why I feel comfortable; I've played well here too. I like hitting more exaggerated shots to get to some of these pins," added Mickelson after finishing in a share of sixth place in LA.

The way that Watson manoeuvred his ball in LA to claim his tenth PGA Tour victory showed that he has recovered the control that was so absent in the troubled past couple of years.

Undisclosed health issues that led to rapid and worrying weight loss appear to be behind him, as are thoughts of retirement. This win has propelled Watson from 117th in the world to 41st.

Watson's caddie Ted Scott consoles him after the emotion of winning his first tournament in two years

"Nobody thought that Bubba Watson from Bagdad, Florida, would ever get to 10 wins," said Watson as he smiled through his tears of joy and relief.

Watson closed out victory with a brilliant birdie at the par-five 17th after smashing a 349-yard drive down the middle of the fairway. A towering approach ensured he held the green which was a distant, firm and increasingly parched surface.

Being able to execute such shots and ally them to a precise putting stroke is exactly what is required at the Masters. Indeed, there is a discernible correlation between Riviera results and those we see at Augusta almost two months later.

Aside from Watson's 2014 double, last year, Thomas Pieters was runner up in LA and then tied for fourth on his Masters' debut. In 2015 Jordan Spieth was fourth at Riviera before winning the year's first major.

In the same year, Paul Casey and Dustin Johnson were Riviera runners up before posting top-six finishes at Augusta.

The Genesis Open - the latest guise of this Los Angeles Open - is not the only Augusta bellwether tournament. In the past two years the Dubai Desert Classic champions - Danny Willett and Sergio Garcia respectively - have gone on to collect a green jacket.

Good news, perhaps, for Li Haotong who edged out Northern Irishman Rory McIlroy for that prestigious Middle East title earlier this month?

But there were probably more pertinent indicators to be garnered from last week's tournament in the United States.

The resurgent Watson clearly needs to be added to the list of potential Augusta winners but so too should Mickelson after collecting a third successive top-six finish.

With a sharper, more concise action he is hitting the ball harder and he has not put together a run of such consistency since 2007.

"I'm playing well enough to compete week in and week out now," he said. "Now it's just a matter of a shot here or there, the difference between winning and not, as opposed to kind of finding my game. I'm not searching anymore."

And Spieth shot the second lowest score of the final day in LA with a 67 that nudged him into a backdoor top ten. Most significantly, on those challenging greens, he rediscovered his putting touch after an inconsistent spell in the preceding fortnight.

"I was kind of skiing uphill with my putting after Phoenix and the beginning of Pebble week," he said.

"I just made some tremendous progress; I putted extremely well this week, which is awesome."

Of course, there is still plenty of golf to be played before that eagerly anticipated week in Georgia rolls around in April.

Predictive sands will shift as form fluctuates but we can already say that men of genuine Masters pedigree, the likes of Spieth, Mickelson and especially Watson, are starting to move in the ideal direction.