If one man has followed the chosen path to be world's number one, and another has the Claret Jug tucked away on his coffee table, then, for the rest, the $5.5 million US PGA Championship - the final major of the year - offers the chance for redemption.

All those players who believe they should have a major title, but haven't, will find at Hazeltine Golf Club an examination which offers a genuine opportunity to finally make the grade.

That's not to say they only have to beat the course. As usual, the shadow of Tiger Woods - winner of the first two majors of the season, the US Masters and the US Open - hangs over everyone. "He's the man to beat this week," remarked Nick Faldo, while Thomas Bjorn is of the opinion that Ernie Els, who took his third major title in winning the British Open, now deserves to be considered the main threat to Woods.

"I think he is the second best player in the world. He certainly has the second best game," insisted Bjorn.

All of which nevertheless provides a ray of expectant light through the shadows, and will probably take some weight off the shoulders of men like Phil Mickelson, Sergio Garcia and, indeed, Padraig Harrington and Darren Clarke as they visit this season's last chance saloon in search of a major win. And there is a growing sense, that, of them all, Harrington has moved into a comfort zone as a realistic challenger.

If statistics lie or reveal the truth, then they still tell a tale about Harrington. Of all the players in the field, and it features 98 of the top 100 in the official world rankings, he has the best average finish of any player in the three majors played this year. Better than Woods even, and better than Els.

So what does that tell us? Maybe that Harrington has truly arrived as a major contender. All this week in the city of Chaska, just south of the Twin Cities of Minneapolis-St Paul, Harrington has been a man in demand by television, radio and print media. As the headline in a piece on him in the local Star Tribune newspaper proclaimed, "Underdog act is growing transparent" as it outlined how his performances in this year's majors have helped to blow his cover.

He's being watched, and he knows it; and he's comfortable with it. "I'm not going into the first round hoping to shoot good scores to get myself into contention," admitted Harrington. "I'm going out there to trying to stay in contention from the word go."

All of which represents a highly visible shift in Harrington's stated intent. Not only is he playing with great confidence, his pre-championship chats reflect that increased confidence.

"It's like going into this event," he said, "many people consider me an outside chance, and that puts a certain amount of pressure on from day one. It's a combination of getting everything right together and I don't think you can win a major without having it all together in the one week. You need to play well, putt and chip well and have a very good mental game on top of it. Actually the mental hurdle is the biggest one to get over, to win a major."

Traditionally, however, the US PGA is the championship that creates most first-time major winners. Perhaps the reason is because courses for this final major of the season tend to be set up more similar to regular tour events, and that courses - such as Hazeltine - offer the right balance to give a greater proportion of the field a genuine chance of success.

Hazeltine demands solid shotmaking, which should make for a wide-open championship and, although there are some fine holes, what happens on the 16th - a Par four of 402 yards - could well determine who wins and who loses this major.

A lay-up is mandatory off the tee to a narrow fairway which has a creek on the left and water and trees on the right. A narrow peninsula green juts out into Lake Hazeltine and, all in all, this hole offers more trouble and more anxiety than any other on the course.

In this rescheduled Ryder Cup year, no European player has managed to win a major. The most consolation to be taken from the three so far is that only two players have managed to secure top-10 finishes, and they are both European: Harrington and Sergio Garcia.

But, with just over a month to go to the matches at The Belfry, all 12 members of Sam Torrance's team are competing here on a course originally designed by Robert Trent Jones Snr and subsequently tweaked by his son Rhys.

And, despite the poor record of Europeans in the US PGA - the last European-born winner was Scottish-born Tommy Armour in 1930 - there are genuinely strong aspirations from the likes of Garcia and Harrington.

"I really feel like I should have won at least one major by now," claimed Garcia. "But to win, you have to putt well, you have to play well and you have to get the break at the right moment. Unfortunately, I don't feel like I've had that week in a major, but I am still waiting for it."

Indeed, if Garcia required any inspiration, it is that the course at Hazeltine resembles Medinah where he pushed Woods down the stretch in the 1999 US PGA. Certainly, in practice, Garcia impressed Els. "I really think he is going to compete this week," insisted the British Open champion.

This is the second successive year that three Irish players have competed in the PGA - but, last year, when David Toms became the latest player to make his major breakthrough in this championship, only Paul McGinley managed to survive the cut.

Harrington and Clarke both missed playing the weekend. This year, McGinley comes in to the championship with poor summer form having missed four cuts in his last six competitive appearances, but his tied-sixth finish in the Wales Open last weekend has "made me feel competitive again".

Clarke, meanwhile, will use a newly acquired Scotty Cameron putter in an attempt to curb the putting woes that have caused endless frustration for him this season.

And, yet, like a dizzy roller-coaster ride, the start and finish is invariably the same - and few will bet against Woods emulating the feat of Ben Hogan this week by becoming just the second player to win three majors in one season. He likes the course, and believes he knows its nuances and subtleties.

The dream of the same-season Grand Slam may be gone but the quest for more majors remains as strong as it ever was. As Harrington observed, "some of the fairways get wide the further you go out, so it should suit long hitters". Like Woods, perhaps?