SAN DIEGO (AP) — Hunter Mahan is playing five straight tournaments to start the season, a West Coast swing that includes a 17,000-mile detour to the Middle East.

Mahan is playing the Qatar Masters next week, situated right between Torrey Pines and Pebble Beach on the golf calendar. It will be his first tournament overseas during the PGA Tour season since he was a rookie and played in France.

He said he was offered the invitation over the holidays and had two days to reply. It was a tough decision for Mahan, who is playing every week through the Match Play Championship in Arizona. Not only does he face a round-trip flight halfway around the world to a course he has never seen, Qatar is opposite the Phoenix Open, which he won two years ago.

“It was an opportunity I didn’t want to pass up,” Mahan said. “I wanted to see if I even liked it over there, if I wanted to do it again, maybe an Abu Dhabi-Qatar swing. There’s a lot of world ranking points right now. They kind of own all the big tournaments, other than the World Golf Championships and the majors.”

Qatar is in the middle of the European Tour’s “Desert Swing,” which starts with Abu Dhabi and concludes with Dubai. PGA Tour players, along with the top European Tour players, are offered appearance money in these events. Tiger Woods, K.J. Choi and Jason Day are among the regular PGA Tour members in Abu Dhabi this week.

Among those who have gone to Qatar in recent years are Steve Stricker and Scott Verplank. Woods has been a regular at Dubai. Phil Mickelson played Abu Dhabi last year, although last year it was opposite the Bob Hope Classic.

“It’s a big trip,” Mahan said. “But nowadays, that’s what you have to do. Golf is worldwide. If you want to play against the best players … if I go over and play well, it’s going to mean a lot more to me than playing well here. It’s just a fact.”

All three of those tournaments had more or at least equal ranking points than the PGA Tour events last year.

The only awkward moment for Mahan is the Phoenix Open learned of his decision before he had a chance to tell them. He had to get a release from the PGA Tour before accepting the invitation from Qatar.

Not only is he a past champion in Phoenix, but Ping, his longtime sponsor, is headquartered there.

“It’s unfortunate it got out to them before we could say anything,” Mahan said. “It stinks because it is one of my favorite tournaments. I love the 16th hole. I’ve won there. It wasn’t like it was an easy decision. It wasn’t like a no-brainer.”

Mahan said he doesn’t ever see himself taking up dual membership on the PGA and European tours, and admires players like Luke Donald, Sergio Garcia and Justin Rose who have been doing it for years.

He said how he performs over the next five weeks will be more about his golf than his travel. After Qatar, he has Pebble Beach, Riviera and the Match Play.

“This is part of the game. This is the lifestyle. You’ve got to travel,” Mahan said. “When you fly over there, it’s not an excuse. When you fly back, it’s not an excuse. It’s about playing well.”

KAPALUA, Hawaii (AP) — Tiger Woods is returning to the Pebble Beach National Pro-Am for the first time in 10 years.

Woods announced on his website Monday he will start his PGA Tour season Feb. 9-12 at Pebble Beach, which he said “might be the prettiest place on earth.”

It has not been pretty enough to get him back to the Monterey Peninsula, except for the 2010 U.S. Open where he tied for fourth. Woods stopped playing because of greens that were exceptionally bumpy from a 180-man field. He also was worn out by the long rounds and having Poppy Hills as part of the rotation.

Now, the field is 156 players, and the Shore Course at Monterey Peninsula Country Club is in the rotation, and has been very well received. The greater incentive for Woods to play, however, was AT&T as the title sponsor.

Even though AT&T was among the first corporate sponsors to dump Woods after he was caught in a series of extramarital affairs at the end of 2009 — Woods had the AT&T logo on his golf bag — the company remains title sponsor of the AT&T National, a tour event that benefits the Tiger Woods Foundations. Woods is building a learning center in the Washington, D.C., area because of that event.

Woods could not play last year because he of a contract to play in Dubai, and it was not clear if he planned to keep Pebble on his schedule for more than one year.

“I’m excited to start my PGA Tour season at the AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am,” Woods said on his website. “AT&T is a great partner to my foundation, and I’m looking forward to playing in this event. I haven’t been to this tournament lately, but I have a lot of good memories at Pebble. It will be fun going back.”

Woods was seven shots behind with seven holes to play in 2000 when he holed out for eagle from the 15th fairway, then birdied two of the last three holes for a 64 to win as Matt Gogel stumbled on the back nine. Later that summer was a performance that some regard his greatest moment. He was the only player to break par in the U.S. Open, winning by 15 shots.

Woods tied for 13th at the AT&T the following year, then tied for 12th in 2002, his last time playing a PGA Tour event at Pebble.

His amateur partner the last couple of years was longtime friend Jerry Chang, although there were indications from those close to Woods that he might go for more of a celebrity partner — not the Hollywood type (he played with Kevin Costner in 1997), but from the sports world. Woods and Dallas Cowboys quarterback Tony Romo played the Wednesday pro-am together in 2009 at Congressional in the AT&T National.

They were joined that day by John Boehner, the House minority leader at the time.