Two recent tournaments, one on either side of the Atlantic, have signalled the recovery of Sergio Garcia, who will be defending the Murphy's Irish Open title later this month. But before his Ballybunion assignment, the 20year-old is making his US Open debut here at Pebble Beach, starting tomorrow.

In Garcia's estimation, the similarities between the course as it was during the AT&T tournament early this year, and as it is now, are limited to how it looks, not how it plays. "In most respects, it is totally different," he said. "It's difficult to keep the ball on the fairways and the greens are so much firmer."

When the US Open was staged at Winged Foot in 1974, not a single player managed to break par and many complained that the USGA had tricked up the course. When asked later in the afternoon whether the organisers were trying to make the world's best players look bad, Sandy Tatum of the USGA replied: "No. We're trying to identify them."

In the event, in what would become known as the "Massacre of Winged Foot", Hale Irwin captured the title with a seven-over-par aggregate of 287. And where the USGA's attitude to their blue riband is concerned, little has changed since then.

As Tiger Woods put it: "They (USGA) say they are trying to identify the best player but my belief is that they're trying to identify the player who drives the ball the best. If you drive the ball straight, where you want to put it in the fairway, you can win the tournament."

All of which would tend to be confirmed by recent developments in preparing the course. "In a perfect world, we wanted to have three inches of rough, which we had at Pinehurst last year," said Tom Meeks of the USGA. "But when we did that, the ball was sitting up like it was on a tee."

So, last weekend, Meeks decided to increase the height of the rough to four inches. And when asked what difference this made, Meeks replied: "I don't know if you can measure the degree of difficulty. Some people say a golfer who hits the ball in the rough should be penalised half a stroke. We want rough where there's a premium on hitting the ball into the fairway."

Which is essentially what Woods was saying. But where does this leave Garcia, who is seen over here as a logical successor to compatriots Seve Ballesteros and Jose-Maria Olazabal as a leading European challenger. "If I play the way I did in the last two rounds of the Buick, I'm going to be up there, for sure," he replied.

He went on: "For the last two months, I've become a very good driver of the ball. I'm very comfortable with it and I've been hitting a lot of fairways and striking the ball pretty well. That's very important."

Early in the year, Garcia absented himself from the European scene while missing the cut in the Phoenix Open, tying for 35th place in the Pebble Beach Pro-Am, losing to David Duval in the third round of the Andersen Consulting and missing the cut in the Players' Championship in which he had a horrendous opening round of 82.

But having started his European year with a share of 12th place in the Spanish Open, he went on to share fifth place behind Colin Montgomerie in the recent Volvo PGA Championship. And when he returned to the US for last weekend's Buick Classic at Westchester, his recovery continued with closing rounds of 65 and 68 for third place behind Dennis Paulson and Duval.

How was it done? "I found myself trying to play the way my caddie (Fanny Sunesson) wanted me to play," he replied. Remarkable as it may seem, his fortunes began to change when Sunesson was replaced by Glenn Murray after the Players' Championship.

Which prompts the thought that perhaps the USGA should also be trying to identify the top caddies! It's a funny old game.