Wherever you stand when it comes to men's professional golf and its many, many problems, the fact that more should be done to elevate the Australian Open seems almost unanimously accepted.

So much has changed since Jack Nicklaus won the Stonehaven Cup for a sixth time, even since Rory McIlroy captured it in 2013, that it's not even their reverence for this historic tournament that makes the argument. It is far simpler than that. Australia boasts some of the world's best golf courses and a large, engaged fanbase. What more should be needed?

But while LIV Golf and the PGA Tour and their respective teams attempt to repair the damage created by the former's malevolence and the latter's malpractice, it's left to the DP World Tour to press on and co-sanction, which it does for a third time this week. The PGA Tour never comes here, remember, despite having ventured to Malaysia, Japan and Korea. LIV, for all its noise, pops along once every 12 months.

With Adam Scott and Jason Day absent, not even the most successful Australian golfers are here and while Scott can be given a pass, Day's decision not to stay for one week more is hard to understand. There is no doubt whatsoever that his joy in returning to the motherland last week was genuine, but whoever is advising him ought to have suggested four more days of golf in the tournament which matters so much more than its companion PGA.

Anyway, what we have is what we have and that includes a return to Kingston Heath, consistently ranked the number two course in the country behind Royal Melbourne, which is just a couple of miles away. This devilish course co-hosted in 2022 but only for one round to Victoria's three; this week, those roles are reversed.

Given that Kingston Heath averaged almost two strokes over par two years ago, Adrian Meronk's 66 the clear best score anyone managed across those first two days, expect a real test even if more rain means the course won't be as firm as we'd all like. It will though play long and, bar the first hole, it's notable how difficult the par-fives are and then comes a fearsome closing stretch from the 16th home.

Conditions might play more into the hands of Joaquin Niemann and MIN WOO LEE than they do Cam Smith and there's certainly no temptation to ride with the latter.

He does have some decent form here from the 2012 Talisker Masters and Open qualifying a year later, both while still an amateur, but last week we were able to take 9/1 in his hometown of Brisbane, at a course where he's a past champion, and in an event he's won three times previously.

Smith has made no secret of his desperation to capture the Australian Open and he might well do it as soon as Sunday, but he hasn't been a factor in this since 2017 and did fold quite tamely in the PGA. His approach to the final hole, when at last the leader had started to wobble, rather summed up his display.

Niemann is therefore the clear most likely winner but it's Lee who I prefer this time in anticipation of another predictable result.

The PGA might've gone to a 66/1 shot, but Elvis Smylie has long been considered the next big thing Down Under and was on what I considered to be a short list of potential winners. Nobody who wasn't on it got close to winning, with third-placed Anthony Quayle coming from the clouds and always short of the required total.

Otherwise it was Smylie fending off Smith, Marc Leishman and Dave Micheluzzi, with Cam Davis next, Spanish star-in-the-making Angel Ayora flying home to finish alongside him in sixth, and fellow standout Challenge Tour players John Parry and Rasmus Neergaard-Petersen alongside Day and a couple of others in eighth.

These tournaments lack depth and it was exposed over just 54 holes in Brisbane, so providing we get to the regulation 72 then we'll probably see the best players dominate once more. On that, you'd have to hope that organisers would be more determined to find a way to complete four rounds given the stature of the Australian Open, which is comforting given that more rain is in the forecast albeit less than last week.