It’s almost 90 years since Tommy Armour, known to all and sundry as the ‘Silver Scot’, triumphed in the first US Open Championship to be held at the Oakmont Country Club back in 1927.

Here in 2016, the great and the good of the modern era will try to overcome a Pittsburgh venue that refuses to yield. Armour’s winning total back in ye day was 13-over. The last time the US Open was staged at Oakmont, in 2007, Angel Cabrera won with a five-over tally. The times may have changed but the toughness of the challenge remains.

By their very nature, US Opens tend to be the kind of brutal battles of golfing attrition that would make trench warfare look like an exercise in easy going progress.

Jordan Spieth, the current champion, is well aware of the perils and pitfalls that await when the world’s finest cross swords this coming week. Plotting a route round Oakmont’s abundant dangers will require a wise strategy, mental resolve, patience and composure. Find the fairways, stay out of the bunkers and find the greens. It sounds easy eh?

“If the fairways get too firm, it could potentially be scary,” reported Spieth after a recent reconnaissance mission. “These bunkers here may as well be bunkers in the UK. They may as well be pot bunkers. You just kind of have to hit sideways out of them for the most part.

“The best player will come out on top this week. You will have no crazy circumstances or bounces or this or that. You have to golf your ball around this place and the person who is in full control of their entire game will win this US Open.”

This time last year, Spieth was on the crest of a wave. He’d already won the Masters at Augusta and would go on to make it a double whammy of major titles as he captured the US Open at Chambers Bay. Oakmont will present an altogether different test.

“It's going to be a real challenge, especially if you fall behind early,” added Spieth, who got back to winning ways recently with victory in the PGA Tour’s Dean & Deluca Invitational. “You're going to want to try and make up shots here, and in any US Open, you can't try and make up shots. You've just got to let the golf course come to you.

“Chambers Bay was a bit different because it's a lot of drivers and it's wider fairways. Sure, you can get into a lot of trouble there, but out here at Oakmont, you're going to have to curve the ball into these fairways to hold it in the right places and you've got to take your medicine a lot more. So mentally, you've got to realise that and not only do you have to realise it, you have to act on it. It's tough. I know that if you win a US Open at Oakmont, you can go ahead and say that you've conquered the hardest test in all of golf. That would obviously be a tremendous honour. There are just so many tough holes that par is going to be a fantastic score. I'd sign for even par right now for 72 holes.”

Having hung the green jacket on to Danny Willett’s shoulders in April, after his own Masters defence came to a calamitous end on Augusta’s back nine, Spieth has already returned the US Open trophy to its owners. The 22-year-old Texan is determined to get it back, mind you.

“I had a last few moments with it and said, ‘don’t worry, you’ll be back here’,” said Spieth, who will be aiming to become the first player to win back-to-back US Opens since Curtis Strange in 1988 and 1989. “I took one last drink out of it, and then we cleaned it up and sent it back.”

With over 200 bunkers to negotiate, the most notorious being the raking Church Pews that comes into play on the third and fourth, players may be tempted ask for a bit of divine intervention as they go into battle with Oakmont. The slick, hard greens that are almost akin to putting on the back of a soup spoon may also have the combatants looking to the heavens. “I put a dime down to mark my ball and the dime slid away,” said the great Sam Snead, who conquered Oakmont’s myriad challenges in the US PGA Championship of 1951.

The club’s roll of honour speaks volumes for the test of the course and the quality of its champions. Snead, Bobby Jones, Gene Sarazen, Ben Hogan and Jack Nicklaus have all triumphed in this neck of the golfing woods while the list of runners-up in major championships here is not too shabby either and includes the likes of the Arnold Palmer, Tom Watson and Tiger Woods.

When Johnny Miller closed with a 63 to win the US Open of 1973 at Oakmont, it was described as ‘the greatest round of the 20th century’. The Americans don’t tend to do understatement.

Here in 2016, Spieth, Jason Day, Rory McIlroy and the rest of golf’s new generation are preparing for the Oakmont examination. It should be quite a test.