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Observer golf columnist and editor at large of Golf Monthly Bill Elliott on surviving Southern Hills

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It's too hot in Tulsa so watch the millionaires earn their corn from the comfort of your front room

Usually the most fun a golf punter may have during each long year is while watching the USPGA Championship. And the reason this is fun is because the only way to observe the season's fourth and final Grand Slam event is while sitting at home nursing something long, cold and reassuring.

This year is no different. The wise old men who run these things (you can tell they are wise because they wear blazers and ties to breakfast) strive hard each time to pick a venue that is long, hot and seriously wearying. Welcome therefore to the 2007 Championship at Southern Hills in Tulsa, Oklahoma. This time the wrinkly gang have surpassed themselves.

Here is trial by sauna. Usually in big-time golf you can tell it is an important week because you can, if you listen carefully, hear the players' brains trying to tick. This is true of the Masters, the US and British Opens but at USPGAs you can't hear brain cells in action so much as feel the sweat dripping off all those cosseted bodies. Thank someone's god that Smellovision has yet to be invented.

By mid-afternoon in Tulsa the temp is hitting 110. And that's in the shade. Just breathing requires big effort. It is no accident that the only horsedrawn carriages available for hire in this part of the mid-West come with 'fringes on top' and, if you're lucky, a fridge down the bottom. What all this means is that while the Masters is a test of putting, the US Open an examination of a man's strategic powers and our Open is the ultimate challenge to imagination, the USPGA remains merely an oven-cooked ordeal.

For those of us secretly wishing that the world's finest, and most pampered, pros occasionally receive an admonishing slap this is good news but for anyone looking for quickfire golf then the USPGA is one to avoid. To do so, however, would be to miss the point of this particular exercise. Joy at someone else's misery is one of the few pleasures that may still be enjoyed for free and those of us into this sort of sadism - and who isn't? - then the USPGA is indeed a must-see.

Rejoice momentarily, therefore, in the early emergence of John Daly, the so-called People's Champ but, in truth, more accurately The Publican's Pal, the big man is a mercurial player, a past winner of the USPGA and our Open, a golfer so gifted and a human being so flawed he is never less than fascinating. He won't last the pace in Oklahoma of course but if he is an accident waiting to happen -and he is - then waiting for the crash is compulsive.

The same, naturally, is true of our own Colin Montgomerie albeit for different reasons. Our favourite Scot is a world class teletubby. A few years ago at another coal-fired USPGA I was waiting to talk to him after he finished a round. He motioned me to wait a minute and turned instead to the small barrel of iced water the Blazered Folk had kindly set beside the scorer's hut so overheated players might douse their faces briefly.

Monty didn't douse his face. Instead he picked up the barrel and emptied it over his beetroot red head. This had two effects: (1) It definitely cooled him down and (2) it turned his top alarmingly transparent as though Mrs Doubtfire had decided to enter a wet T-shirt comp.

What was it like? Quite impressive in its own way but, really, overall you don't want to know. I had to go and lie down for a while and, for once, it wasn't just the heat that encouraged this. So pour yourself a beer tonight, turn on the telly and enjoy the weekend...