If long driving, good hands around the greens and quality irons makes for a winning formula this week, then perhaps Sergio Garcia could conjure a second major championship at a course where he contended in 2001.
Much has changed since, both in his life and in terms of Southern Hills, but if anything it should be even better for him now. Wide fairways will allow the Spaniard to flex his muscles off the tee, and he ought to be more comfortable than most combating this course's main defences: tricky green complexes, and strong winds.
Garcia had been a bystander in majors post-2017 Masters win, missing 11 of his next 15 cuts in a shocking run for one of his ability. However, he's now on a run of three top-25 finishes in succession, he's hitting the ball really well again, and if his recent LIV Golf-inspired outburst doesn't affect him, it'd be no surprise at all were he to find his way into the mix.
As with Garcia, Marc Leishman is a name synonymous with majors, having contended on several occasions and come closest when losing out in a play-off for the Open Championship at St Andrews in 2015. A return to the Old Course this summer has no doubt been circled on the Leishman calendar for some time, but before that he's not to be ruled out here at Southern Hills, despite a pretty poor record in both this and the US Open.
Leishman ought to prefer this test, having been no fan of the typical US Open layout with narrow fairways and thick rough. As an occasionally wild driver who is long but not the longest, that formula is no good to him, whereas he's very comfortable under the sort of conditions expected in Tulsa, including around the greens where he's best from tight lies.
Though a bit disappointing last week, he did finish with his best round and a hole-in-one to boot, so it was tempting to side with him at three-figure prices. It is in fact rare to see him at such odds in a major and I'm not sure he's as far away from contending as the market seems to think.
A glance at Bernd Wiesberger's form since his Ryder Cup debut last September would have you believing he's been pretty poor, but there is absolutely no doubt that from tee-to-green, he's not far off the game's elite right now. The reason for such a modest run of results is that he's not just struggled a little on the greens, but that the putter has become a massive handicap.
This can be seen in his last two starts, which have resulted in eighth place in Spain, and 37th in Belgium. Wiesberger was the best player in the field from tee-to-green in the first of these and second in last week's Soudal Open, where he gave away close to two strokes per round on the greens. That's insurmountable and chances are it continues to hold him back.
But whereas it's very unlikely a player languishing towards the foot of the ball-striking charts will suddenly hit the ball to a high standard, the reverse happens regularly enough for odds of 250/1 to hold some appeal. Wiesberger's run of bad putting extends right back to last August, having lost strokes in 14 successive events. If he can somehow stop the rot, he can go well in the major which saw him feature in the final group alongside Rory McIlroy in 2014.
Like Wiesberger, Branden Grace has made winning look pretty easy on the DP World Tour. Unlike the Austrian, he's also completed the transition to the PGA Tour where he's won twice, and gone mighty close at the very highest level in both this event and the US Open.
The South African has endured a pretty miserable year but there were signs in the Heritage that he'd turned a corner, after which came a top-five finish in the Zurich Classic of New Orleans. A missed cut in the Wells Fargo followed, before he produced some tidy tee-to-green work to finish mid-pack in the Byron Nelson, a shootout which does not suit him one bit.
With a Presidents Cup spot to play for, Grace needs a big summer and he's got at least two suitable courses to aim at in majors, first here and then at St Andrews. If the short-game he showed last week marries with the iron play of the Heritage, then suddenly this fine wind player would look a live candidate.
Aussies in the wind is a bit of a golfing trope but it's true that most of them are at least used to battling it, and Cam Davis is certainly one such example. This silky-smooth swinger showed as much when a shock winner of the Australian Open, and he's impressed when winning on both the Korn Ferry Tour and the PGA Tour, too.
Lower scoring conditions would probably suit better but following a good effort on his Masters debut, he finished third by the sea at Harbour Town. Then came a missed cut in the Wells Fargo, but his ball-striking was really good and the overall feeling is that he's got a nice summer in front of him, whether it begins here or not.
One player for whom 2022 will go down as a success regardless of what happens over the coming months is Pablo Larrazabal, who won a play-off in South Africa and then went in again for an emotional victory in his native Spain last month.
It's fair to say he's never gone on to establish himself at world level, reaching the fringes of the top 50 but never better, yet this might be the best and most consistent run of his career. As well as winning twice, he's been third, fifth, sixth and 13th in a run of seven events dating back to February, and that coveted top-50 spot is within touching distance now.
He's beaten elite players in the past – Henrik Stenson, Sergio Garcia and Rory McIlroy have all finished runner-up to Larrazabal – and this is one Spaniard for whom cliched remarks about good hands are bang on the money. It's still likely he comes crashing back down to earth, but providing the course doesn't eliminate those who aren't massive hitters, he might just be able to keep the good times rolling.
It is possible though that big hitting is a prerequisite, and if so then the biggest of them all, Cameron Champ, might build on some encouraging recent signs.
Now recovered from an injury problem which blighted his first third of the season, Champ finished 10th at the Masters, followed that with sixth place in Mexico, and closed with a round of 65 in Texas last week. Across all three he's been brilliant with driver and the fact he's gone well in all three Masters starts now suggests he might just cope better with these dramatic greens than his short-game stats suggest.
Already having contended in this championship two years ago and a three-time PGA Tour winner, Champ has the potential to go well now he's back performing at the top of his game.
It's been heartening to see Anirban Lahiri recapture his best form this spring, first when pushing Cameron Smith all the way at Sawgrass and more recently when fifth in the Wells Fargo. Four of his last five starts have resulted in top-15 finishes, and the exception was at Harbour Town, a quirky course he's never really liked.
Much of his improvement stems from the driver, but Lahiri is doing pretty much everything well and that includes his work around the green, ranking 20th, seventh and 10th across his last three starts. Throw in a hot putter, and he's suddenly looking like he could become a PGA Tour winner, with a Presidents Cup return very much in his sights later in the year.
This will be his first start in a major since the pandemic, a long wait for one with plenty of ability, and he has enjoyed some success before, notably when fifth in the 2015 PGA Championship. That came under low-scoring conditions but he showed at Sawgrass and again last time out that he can grind, too, and there are few outsiders who will come here with greater confidence and indeed in a better place – Lahiri and his wife welcomed their second child into the world on Tuesday.
Finally, I can't leave Patrick Reed out of a feature like this given that I like Augusta (winner) and Shinnecock (top-five) as potential guides, and that he's won on some of the biggest and toughest courses on the PGA Tour.
Overall I do remain worried about his long-game, which has at times been abysmal during a quiet 12 months, but he's driven the ball a little better lately. That's helped Reed make three of his last four cuts, including in the Masters, and if he can take another step forward then we know he has the short-game credentials for Southern Hills.