Sergio Garcia insists the Golf Club of Houston provides ideal preparation for Augusta National even though he failed to make the cut at The Masters last year.
The world number eight returns to the Shell Houston Open this week having claimed third at the same event in 2014.
The PGA Tour's last stopover before heading to Augusta will be Garcia's first event since completing the WGC-Cadillac Championship on March 8.
While he is effectively on the same schedule as 2014 in terms of workload, the 35-year-old remains confident it will lead to a better Masters result in 2015.
Garcia has never won one of golf's four majors, with his best result at Augusta coming in 2004 when he claimed a share of fourth position.
"I felt really comfortable here when I came here last year so I wanted to try it again this year," Garcia said at a media conference in Houston on Tuesday.
"Hopefully I'll be a little bit better next week too. But it is a nice golf course. They take great care of us.
"Obviously you have some shots that you might get next week. It's nice to get a feeling of it; chipping around the greens and things like that.
"So first of all, it's a great tournament, and I think that it also helps that it's set up similar to next week."
Garcia had a hit at the Golf Club of Houston on Tuesday and his only concern was that the greens were softer than he remembered.
The Spaniard finished two shots back from Matt Kuchar and Matt Jones, before the latter triumphed at the first play-off hole.
"I'm excited to be back here in Houston. Obviously I had a great year last year. I had a great week last year," Garcia said.
"[I] played nine holes this morning and the course looks great and in very good shape. The greens look a little bit soft at the moment and a little bit slower than expected.
"But other than that it looks really really nice and I'm excited to play and hopefully do a little bit better than last year."