Without possessing the traditions of the Masters or the history of the foundation stone events like the US Open and the Open, this week's USPGA Championship is generally regarded as the fourth major in terms of status.
On pure merit, it deserves better.
Over the years, it has found ways to compensate by moving from a match-play format to strokeplay in 1958 and more recently shifting position in the calendar from August to May.
Furthermore, with 99 of the world’s top 100 taking part this week, it is the strongest of the quartet of events which define the men’s golf year.
The calendar change seems to have worked particularly well and it now sits in the central vortex of the season rather than in its slipstream.
The 2019 Brooks Koepka-Dustin Johnson heavyweight contest at brawny Bethpage Black was a good start for the new date while the subsequent two editions of staging the championship in May have each seen history being achieved and, thereby more eyeballs trained on the drama.
The staging at Kiawah Island in 2021 saw the first ever player over 48 years of age triumph in a major with 50-year-old Phil Mickelson’s 'one for the ages’ win in North Carolina.
Then last year at Southern Hills, there was the extraordinary final day comeback victory of Justin Thomas from a record seven shots back on the final day in Oklahoma, where events in determining the outcome were characterised significantly by Mito Pereira’s driver-slashing implosion on the 72nd hole.
So what drama does Oak Hill in upstate New York have in store over the next four days? Will an Irish player rise to the challenge as witnessed around the East Course in the extraordinary European Ryder Cup comeback victory here in 1995 with the clinching point secured on the 18th green by Philip Walton?
Ireland has an interesting quartet of challengers in the field. Between them, Rory McIlroy and Padraig Harrington have claimed a combined three USPGA Championship titles in the last 15 years.
Shane Lowry tied for fourth place in Kiawah two years ago [as did Harrington] while in just his second ever major appearance last year, Seamus Power moved to the fringes of contention on the final day, eventually finishing tied for 9th place just four shots off the play-off.
McIlroy is in an unfamiliar position this week of having less attention on him than usual at a major championship but it’s a moot point as to whether that is an advantage or a disadvantage.
He’s been speaking this week about the pressure of expectation and how that fed into what he termed as a deflating performance last month at the Masters where he missed the cut having harboured so much optimism in the days beforehand.
"I was never so sure that I was going to have a great week at Augusta…..and then ‘that’ happened [missed cut]. It was a great lesson not to put too much into feelings or vibes," he said on Tuesday.
He also made it clear by responding tersely in his press conference to all questions about LIV Golf, that he is retreating from his role of being perceived as the PGA Tour’s lead spokesperson on the Saudi-funded Tour.
"I’d rather people be talking about myself than stuff I’m doing behind the scenes or stuff I say at press conferences. It’s time to just focus on me and to get back to winning ways," he concluded.
All four of McIlroy’s major championship triumphs have come on lush green courses and Oak Hill somewhat fits that description although the fairways have firmed up somewhat during a dry late spring in the Rochester area.
McIlroy has also played well before at Oak Hill finishing tied for eighth place in 2013.
The removal of 500 trees since then and a sympathetic redesign of the original Donald Ross layout by Andrew Green which has added 200 yards and opened sight lines to greens, all points towards to the strengths of McIlroy’s strong ball-striking game.
Then there’s the small element of how well he knows the course. His wife Erica is from nearby Rochester and McIlroy is an honorary member of Oak Hill and a regular visitor to these parts.
It’s not quite a home town game advantage but he won’t lack for local knowledge and that might compensate somewhat for what is being termed a mini-slump in his game since the Masters missed cut.
On the theme of good ball-strikers in the world these days, Shane Lowry’s game has been excellent this season in that department.
A tied 16th finish at the Masters was scant reward for his efforts in finding fairways and hitting greens in regulation during the week in Augusta, especially considering he had been in the top five at one stage in Sunday’s final round.
With new caddy Darren Reynolds now four months on the bag, there’s a sense that things have settled and all that’s needed is more consistency on the greens.
"I feel like results do not show it, but my game is in decent shape. I think if I hole a few putts I can be dangerous any week. I’ve done a bit of work on that and I like the golf course here and so it’s all about getting my head in the right place mentally," he said on Tuesday.
Lowry will also be motivated by needing to remain in the European Ryder Cup team frame so a high finish here would be particularly welcome heading into a dense calendar of high qualifying point events.
That’s also a motivation for Seamus Power who tied for ninth place last year in the US PGA at Southern Hills in just his secondmajor championship appearance.
"If I play well this week it’s one of the first things that will come on my mind. These [majors] are the higher level tests of golf and that’s the way the Ryder Cup is going to be so I know that playing well here will go a long way [to earning selection]," Power saidafter his first practice round here.
Harrington knows that he’s hitting the ball arguably better and certainly longer than he has at any point of his career. Should he win this weekend, he would, at 51, be the oldest major championship winner in history.
"I’m playing well enough and I don’t give up anything in distance to the field. So physically I’m good enough and if my head is in the game, I feel I can compete with these young guys," said the 2008 USPGA Champion who tied for fourth place behind Mickelson at Kiawah Island two years ago.
The favourites are unquestionably the top two players in the world rankings – Masters Champion Jon Rahm and Players Champion Scottie Scheffler - who have separated themselves from the rest of the world in 2023 with a combined six titles between them.
But on a near 7400-yard course, with a tight par of 70 on which length off the tee seems like a considerable advantage, real bombers of the ball like McIlroy, recent LIV event winners Koepka and Johnson or last year’s joint third-place finisher Cameron Young, who tied seventh in Augusta, can all be serious contenders over the four days.
