Searching for a European flavour

The Oakland Hills Club course, and especially the 12th fairway pictured here, will test the skills of even the accomplished golfer.

No European has won the US PGA championship since the Scottish-born and adopted American Tommy Armour triumphed when the last of golf's four majors was a matchplay event. Rarely will the Europeans have a better chance of ending that embarrassing drought.

The world No 1 Tiger Woods, a winner for the last two years, was looking confidently at a hat-trick until a serious knee injury curtailed his 2008 campaign. Apart from the significant absentee in the top quality field, the venue brings back happy memories for a cluster of hopefuls travelling across the Atlantic. Oakland Hills was the scene of Europe's crushing Ryder Cup success over the United States four years ago and Padraig Harrington, who last month retained his Open Championship title in impressive fashion at Royal Birkdale, believes the Europeans' liking for the difficult course could be a key factor over the 72-hole showpiece, which starts this afternoon.

Harrington would traditionally have teed up his ball alongside that of the US Open champion Woods and the US Masters champion Trevor Immelman of South Africa. The absence of Woods, though, elevates Argentina's Angel Cabrera, winner of that second major of the year in 2007, into that principal threeball. Harrington is one of eight survivors from that 2004 Ryder Cup team making a return visit to Oakland Hills.

He recalls it being a tough test, but the Irishman prefers it that way as he demonstrated when lifting his first Claret Jug at the treacherous Carnoustie links last year and holding on to it in the wind and rain at Birkdale. "It's an advantage to anybody who's played the course in an event of the intensity of the Ryder Cup ," says Harrington. Accordingly, he suggests Paul Casey, Darren Clarke, Sergio Garcia, Miguel Angel Jimenez, Colin Montgomerie, Ian Poulter and Lee Westwood, who helped humble the Americans in 2004, would take an equal measure of confidence on to the tee.

Westwood had pushed Woods all the way in the US Open. He narrowly missed out on a 20-foot putt, which would have taken him into a three-way play-off with Rocco Mediate, and disappointed his home crowd when strongly fancied at Birkdale. The Englishman regained his encouraging recent form, however, by chasing home Vijay Singh in last week's Bridgestone Invitational at Firestone - a performance that took him back above Harrington as the Europe's leading Ryder Cup qualifier - and is an obvious contender for his first major title.

Westwood reckons the course is 300 yards longer than on his last visit and remarks: "I think they'll probably set it up just as tough as it was then. It was pretty hard when we played it. I remember if you missed fairways, it was difficult to hit greens. "I remember the greens being very undulating and the organisers almost having to slow them down," adds Westwood, who has two former major winners, Geoff Ogilvy and Zach Johnson, for company in the first two rounds.

Poulter, whose automatic selection for next month's Ryder Cup at Valhalla is less assured than Westwood's, boosted his selection prospects considerably by taking the second spot behind Harrington at Birkdale - a performance which increases a new level of self-belief that he too can become a major champion. The flamboyant Poulter, whose eccentric dress sense gets him noticed wherever he plays, is trying hard to prevent the Ryder Cup from distracting him from this weekend's business but appreciates that will be almost impossible as the jockeying for places in the line-ups of Nick Faldo and Paul Azinger intensifies.

Poulter, who won both of the matches he played in four years ago, was dismissive of the lack of European success in the PGA tournament. "The same old question arises every year," he says. "Hopefully we can change that this week." Henrik Stenson, the Dubai-based Swede who finished strongly at Birkdale to claim a share of third place with the veteran Australian Greg Norman, is another who could bring the European barren spell to an end.

The last year's Dubai Desert Classic winner is well-placed for Ryder Cup selection at third in the European rankings. He is hoping to reproduce the form he showed over the last two rounds at Birkdale which made him rue a shaky start over the Southport links. @Email:[e-mail]