Padraig Harrington is preparing for an Oakland Hills set-up more in the mould of US Opens than the US PGA Championship he will contest this week.
The two-time Open Championship winner played nine holes of practice on Monday and Tuesday at the par-70, 7,395-yard course near Detroit.
And as well as playing more than 300 yards longer than it did on the Irishman's last visit at the 2004 Ryder Cup, Harrington is expecting a more rigorous set-up.
"It's just a bigger golf course," the 36-year-old said.
"Since we have come back, there's more drivers off the tee, it's enclosed with more bunkers, I suppose most of them were there the last time but I think that you got to hit driver, you've got to hit it straight.
"And the greens, while they're incredibly difficult to putt on, they're at least a little bit more receptive than they were back in the Ryder Cup.
"The usual set-up for the US PGA is more like a tough US tour event.
"This year, and the last couple years, it's got more like a traditional US Open-type test. It's nearly more US Open-type than the US Open is at the moment. It's actually like they switched the two of them around this year."
Harrington attributed that to the United States Golf Association easing up on their set-up for their national championship, and the PGA of America moving in the other direction.
He said: "The last two set-ups for the US Open, I don't think there's a player that wouldn't want to play golf courses like that every week - brilliantly set up, very fair, different grades of rough as you get away from the fairway.
"I think this golf course is set up more like what a US Open was set up three or four years ago where missing the fairway by a couple of yards is the same as missing it by 10 yards. There is no difference once you go off, there's no first cut, second cut, third cut of rough.
"So this is a tougher test in that terms, and it's a more intimidating test and more punishing in the sense that a slight miss is just as bad as a big miss. Maybe even a big miss might get away with more.
"So it will be an interesting golf course to see shot management out there and whether to be aggressive or not, or whether to play very cautiously."
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