PGA Championship promises a strong course for the strongest field

Four layers of clothes, beanies and hand warmers were everywhere on the eve of the PGA Championship, a reminder how this major will be different from the previous six at Oak Hill.

The temperature was 37 degrees — it felt colder with a morning breeze — and it made the 7,394 yards on the scorecard of a par 70 feel even longer.

“I still can’t believe it’s nearly middle of May and that we’re still going through 40-, 50-degree weather,” Jason Day said. “But that’s this part of the country at this time of the year.”

Ockie Strydom of South Africa was on the 10th tee, taking practice swings and waiting for the clock to hit 7 a.m. for the course to officially open.

“Have you no friends?” someone called out to him.

Strydom laughed and replied, “You’d have to be crazy to play in this.”

Such was the risk of the PGA Championship moving from August to May. The good news for

Day, world No. 1 Jon Rahm, defending champion Justin Thomas and the rest of the 156-man field was Wednesday was a blip on an otherwise pleasant forecast.

As for the difficulty, that’s not likely to change. Oak Hill, restored to the intent of famed architect Donald Ross, is likely to test everything.

Jordan Spieth was asked to describe the rough and he took it a step further.

“It’s about as nasty ... there’s nothing that separates this from a U.S. Open,” Spieth said. “This is a U.S. Open. The fairways are firm and narrow, and the rough is thick. As far as difficulty, it feels like a U.S. Open course. Par is a nice score.”

Jason Dufner is the only player to reach double digits under par (10-under 270) in the six majors at Oak Hill — three U.S. Opens, three PGAs. That was 10 years ago in August, when rain soaked the course and left the greens soft and vulnerable.

This effectively is a new course — it certainly looks that way. The bunkers are deeper, with steep, nearly vertical lips. Some greens have deep rough on one side and closely mown areas on the other that send balls rolling some 20 yards away.

Thomas went long of the 230-yard third green. He tried a flop shot back up the slope the putting surface and it kept rolling until it was back in the fairway.

There is trouble everywhere, capable of punishing mistakes.

“You miss greens out here, you’re going to make a lot of bogeys,” two-time PGA champion Brooks Koepka said. “You miss fairways, you’re going to be making quite a few bogeys if you’re out of position.”

This is going to be a big golf course to handle,” Tony Finau said. “None of the holes I played I looked at and said, ‘I’m going to birdie this hole this week for sure.’ It’s going to be that type of test. The guys that can mentally overcome the hurdle of just trying to stay patient ... you just have to play well for all four days if you’re going to win this week.” The PGA Championship again features the strongest field of the majors, with only the injured Will Zalatoris missing from the top 100 players in the world.