The Open has St Andrews, the US Open has Pebble Beach - at least, that's how the Americans try to sell it.
It's a typically ballsy piece of American bombast: claiming half a millennium of history for a venue that's less than a hundred years old, and suggesting that four admittedly-exciting US Opens can somehow stack up against 27 Open Championships that have been held at the Old Course.
Yet for all that, Bunker Mentality can't help but buy into the dream lock, stock and smoking 5-iron.
Faced with the 'Death Row Final Meal' test - if you could only play one last round of golf in your life, where would it be? - then we'd have no hesitation whatsoever in naming Pebble as the venue.
It would be a ridiculous choice: the course is, our spies tell us, ludicrously over-golfer (it's open to anybody staying in the hotel); the weather often appalling along the Monterrey Peninsula, even in the height of summer; and aside from the eye-catching clifftop holes, much of the rest of the course is merely great as opposed to 'die-happy-after-walking-off unbelievable'.
Yet that's what we'd go for. There's something about the romance of the West Coast setting, and then of course there are those glorious feature holes - the 7th, 8th, 10th and 18th being chief among them.
They are holes so glorious that just to see them is to believe that God is a golfer, so perfect is the harmony between what nature provides and where man has decided to cut eighteen four-and-a-half-inch holes in the turf.
But there's more than that. Pebble's US Open history might be short, but the fact that the roster of winners includes the greatest players of their eras gives those tournaments extra credibility somehow: Jack Nicklaus, Tom Watson, Tom Kite and Tiger Woods. With names like that painted on the honours board over the clubhouse bar, it's no wonder the course has become America's darling.
So BM for one can't wait for the players to tee off this Thursday. Will the Europeans end 40 years of disappointment in the tournament? Can Tiger throw off his troubles at the scene of his greatest triumph?
All will be revealed in due course. But for now, to get you all in the mood, here's a quick reminder of how US Opens at Pebble Beach have all turned out to be so incredibly special.
1972: Nicklaus hits the flag on 17th with famous 1-iron
With the wind blowing at Pebble Beach, all the main contenders for the US Open edged over par on the final day - and Jack Nicklaus was no different, clinging on to a narrow lead with two holes left to go.
But this was Nicklaus at the peak of his powers: he had come to Pebble Beach on the back of victories in the previous season's US PGA Championship and the Masters a few months earlier, and was desperately trying to win the Grand Slam in a season. Summoning almost superhuman resources, he flashed a 1-iron at the par-3 that hit the flag and finished just inches away to guarantee the birdie that put the result beyond doubt.
The Golden Bear finished the job to win - but sadly his Grand Slam ambition turned to heartbreak the next month at Muirfield when Lee Trevino's outrageous chip-in denied him at The Open.
1982: Tom Watson chips in to win the US Open
With Jack Nicklaus ahead in the clubhouse watching on TV after a stunning final round, Watson came to the 17th tee needing two pars over the tough final two holes to win the US Open for the first time.
Disaster appeared to have struck when Watson put his ball in the rough on the par-3 17th, facing a tough chip shot onto the rock-hard green that would have left most players fearing for their chances.
Not Watson. Confidently grabbing his wedge, he told his caddie that he was going to hole the shot - and promptly did so! He added another birdie at the last to rub in the victory and secure the only US Open title of his career.
1992: Tom Kite wins in the wind
Texan golfer Tom Kite was the US Tour's record money winner back in the early 1990s, but he had never won the Major championship that his skills deserved.
And he seemed destined to be frustrated in 1992 when the man then known as 'the best player never to have won a Major' began his final round in howling wind.
In a tournament which saw Gil Morgan briefly go lower under par than any other player in US Open history, suddenly people were collapsing over par. All over the course the world's best golfers were destroyed by the elements - Nick Faldo finished with a 77, for example - and early-started Colin Montgomerie looked a good bet to have pinched the title with a 70 in the gale-force conditions.
But Kite defied nature itself, producing brilliant shot after brilliant shot even as his opponents crumbled, and finally winning the title.
Ironically Monty has gone from the man who nearly denied him to the man who now stands equally frustrated, and Major-less, at the end of his career.
2000: Woods wins by 15 shots - the biggest ever winning margin in a Major
After winning the 1999 US PGA Tiger Woods was starting to hit his stride - but a disappointing start to the Masters had seen him finish tied for 5th only after some stunning golf at the weekend.
Yet at Pebble Beach Tiger was always going to be in his element: he both knew and loved the course from his time as a student at nearby Stanford, and simply blew away the field in what remains - by his own admission - the greatest week of golf that he has ever played in his life.
Woods destroyed the field, setting a record victory margin of 15 shots. The manner of the victory stunned the golfing world - and Tiger stunned that world once more by adding the next three Majors to complete his 'Tiger Slam'.