GOLF/USPGA Championship: The patch up has worked. Padraig Harrington, on the verge of physical breakdown a fortnight ago, has had an engine overhaul that has him purring again.

"My neck isn't giving me any trouble. I hopefully caught it in time before it got to the chronic stage and I'd have had to take two months off," he remarked ahead of the 86th US PGA Championship - starting tomorrow at Whistling Straits - where the Dubliner feels very much at home.

Since finishing runner-up to Brett Rumford in the Irish Open at Baltray, his fourth second-place finish of the season, Harrington's time has been spent in the gym - "I've been working on my shoulder mobility to support the muscles around it," he remarked - and, naturally enough for him, practising, including a two-day stint with his coach Bob Torrance in Scotland.

He's pleasantly surprised at what he has found here by the shore of Lake Michigan in Kohler, Wisconsin. In picking the brain of US Tour player Jerry Kelly, a local, over the past few months about the course, Harrington had been forewarned about just how difficult it would be.

However, his initial reaction, after playing the course in practice, was that it was "definitely playable, very playable". Of course, many of Kelly's predictions had been based on the evidence prior to the PGA of America's decision to widen the fairways, by cutting back the primary rough, and bringing forward a number of tees, including reducing the par four first hole from 491 yards to a more manageable 408 yards.

"If it got very windy, or cold, or rained, then this course would be really brutally difficult," admitted Harrington. "But, in normal circumstances, it's a great and interesting test."

Certainly, Harrington - the top-ranked European player in the world, at eighth - is looking to salvage something from his season's performances in the majors that have steadily worsened as the year has progressed. From finishing tied-13th in the Masters and, then, tied-31st in the US Open, Harrington missed the cut in the British Open at Royal Troon and this represents his final chance of 2004 to make a concerted challenge.

Yet, Harrington feels very comfortable in environs that are supposedly imitations of Irish links courses. "This golf course is not like anything else we play anywhere. It's unique. We're all coming into this course not knowing exactly who it suits . . . because of the greens, you still have to play target golf and you can't exactly run the ball up.

"Whether certain aspects of it will suit players who have been brought up in the wind, I don't know. But, ultimately, I think the golf course will suit the guy who strikes the ball well. A good striker of the ball will do well here because you have to control your ball flight whether it's a left-to-right wind, a right-to-left wind, high or low."

What can't be argued is the decision to bring this championship to this course - "It does have a very links-like feel but, as regards comparing it to home, it is not that comparable," said Harrington - has changed the traditional set-up for the PGA and, possibly, given the Europeans a chance to end a barren statistic that dates back to 1930 when Tommy Armour, a Scot based in the US, became the only European winner of the title.

"I can't explain why Europeans haven't won this championship," said Harrington. "Maybe it is because the US PGA's set-up of the four majors is the one that is most similar to the US Tour events so, you know, with that familiarity, the US Tour players have had an advantage over the years.

"These are individual events, it's not Europe against the United States. That will only happen one week this year at the Ryder Cup."

Harrington has developed to a stage where he is considered a serious contender in major championships yet the trend of recent majors - eight of the last nine have been first-time winners - would indicate a more-established player will triumph this time.

"If you're a betting man," said Harrington, "you've got to go for a higher-ranked player. In the law of averages, I'm sure the first-time winners and the surprise winners have probably done enough for two years. I'd maybe go with one of the favourites this week. That doesn't mean that they can't be beaten by a rookie first time out who is playing well.

"But, you know, it doesn't really bother me. I'm not too interested in whether a rookie wins this week or a guy who has not won before . . . It's just a pure question of me concentrating on my own game and, if I don't win, hopefully a nice guy wins it."

From the moment that he saw this course, though, Harrington took a liking to it.

Tomorrow, he tees-off in the company of Ernie Els and Jim Furyk and will attempt to fill in the biggest gap in his golfing curriculum vitae.

From his demeanour, you sense that Harrington sees this as a real opportunity . . . only time will tell if that confidence is fully justified.