Bjorn - hoping for change in fortune. (Getty Images)

A total of 31 players tee off on Thursday to try to end Europe's six-year drought in the majors.

Thomas Bjorn is among them, but merely getting out of the USPGA Championship at Baltusrol unscarred would be a step in the right direction.

The 34-year-old Dane has played just twice since the US Open in June. At the European Open he was leading before crashing to a closing 86, including an 11 on the 17th.

Then at the Open he could afford to bogey the last hole of his second round to make the cut - and drove out of bounds for a double bogey six.

Bjorn, of course, is no stranger to such drama. He lost the 2003 Open from three ahead with four to play and walked out of a tournament last year because his game and his mind were in such a state of disarray.

The current British Masters champion has been boosted, however, by the comforting words of some of the sport's biggest names.

"Tiger, Ernie, Nick Price, Jack Nicklaus - and not just two-minute conversations," said Bjorn. "It was nice and it is best when it comes from people within the game."

He is now working on changes to his game which he hopes will enable him to achieve everything he feels he is capable of.

"It could take two days or two months, but it has to be done and I have committed myself to it.

"I have just got to accept that in this period there might be some golf that is not the best, but I saw a video of my swing and saw things that definitely needed to change.

"On the Saturday of the European Open I played really well all of a sudden, but on the last day I just knew my swing was not there."

During his lay-off since St Andrews, Bjorn discovered a liking for something he had previously detested - cricket.

He said he was "completely smitten" after watching some of England's Second Test victory over Australia.

"I have never played it and never held a bat in my hands. I always found it the most boring sport, but now I know it is not just standing there doing nothing.

"If it goes to the fifth Test I might even go!"

With finishes of third in the US Open and fifth in the Open it is Sergio Garcia who once more is the European most fancied to challenge come Sunday.

Garcia, runner-up to Tiger Woods in the USPGA in 1999, has now had 10 top 10s in majors and said: "Hopefully I can get it going and give myself a chance."

He needed treatment for a sore back yesterday, while Open runner-up Colin Montgomerie was taking things fairly easy so not to aggravate the finger injury he suffered at Gleneagles last week.

Just to be in New Jersey is something Montgomerie thought might not happen when he first saw a specialist last Friday.

There was talk of surgery and possibly being out of action until February, so the Scot sought a further examination.

"The second did not think the ligament damage was as bad, so I rested it over the weekend and I am icing it and taking painkillers and anti-inflammatories," he said yesterday.

"I did not want to take any chances with it. I hit one or two out of the light rough, but that was enough.

"I was able to play 18 and not just nine that way, but I don't really know how it is going to be."