With the bulk of the US PGA Tour's big-guns, among them Tiger Woods, Phil Mickelson, Rory McIlroy, Luke Donald and 'Bubba' Watson, America's latest Masters Champion, all taking a break this week, its young guns have been left to battle it out with the Tour's lesser stars, its vets and its journeyman.
Matt Kuchar, at No 15, the highest ranked player in the field
But that doesn't mean to say there are no quality golfers in the field for the Valero Texas Open, set to tee-off at the Oaks Course at TPC San Antonio on Thursday..
To the contrary, the field includes a host of talented golfers.
Some are Tour stalwarts like Matt Kuchar, Boo Weekley and big-hitting JB Holmes who are already established winners with Ryder Cup caps.
Others are seasoned, 40-something vets like Stuart Appleby, Jerry Kelly, KJ Choi, David Duval and Rich Beem, who have all won big before and are still capable of winning some more.
And others again like Anthony Kim, Cameron Tringale, Harris English and Danny Lee are among the Tour's many ambitious young guns looking for fame and fortune.
But booming swings and sheer talent might not be enough this week on a tough and unforgiving course, hosting a PGA Tour event for only the second time.
To get anywhere on this 7,435-yard, Greg Norman-Sergio Garcia designed layout that had a scoring average of 73.67 and was ranked the most difficult of the 22 par-four courses in play during last year's Tour, it requires a great deal of patience, persistence and tee-to-green accuracy and then a fair amount of imagination and creative thinking on its devilishly difficult greens.
Even its par fives can't be trifled with.
Between them, the four long holes saw to it that they had the highest scoring average (4.94) and consequently conceded the lowest number of birdies of any course on the US Tour in 2011
Last year it was the relatively unknown Brenden Steele who took away the first prize of $1,116,000 and this year, the course, being what it is, a track that destroys the best laid plans of mice and men and where it's fatal to get a head of yourself, there are a wide range of possible new champions with the winner most likely to come from those who are not necessarily the biggest hitters, the finest chippers or the best putters, but from those who will happily play the course one shot at a time and not try to tear it apart with birdies or eagles on every hole.
Clearly current form may also count - although, golf being golf, the brilliance or disaster of one week is not always mirrored in the form of a player in the following week - and in this regard some of the men the pundits are tipping to play leading roles in the battle of Texas include Kuchar, despite the fact that he'll be playing for the first time at TPC San Antonio, fellow American Charley Hoffman who was joint second last year and has five top 15 finishes in his last six starts in this event, and Holmes, who led the field in distance off the tee last year and ranked T10 in greens hit.
For various good reasons you might also want to keep and eye on Johnson Wagner, who has claimed four top 10s this year, local hero Jimmy Walker and Cameron Tringale who shared 5th place here last year.
golf365.com