On one of the most visually dramatic golf courses in the world, the PGA Championship was filled with the requisite drama that matched the setting.

The protagonists included the two longest hitters in the world, Dustin Johnson and Bubba Watson, two of the best young players, Germany's Martin Kaymer and Irishman Rory McIlroy, and the veteran Australian Steve Elkington.

They went back and forward almost from the beginning, a beginning that saw the three-shot lead of overnight leader, Nick Watney, erased in one hole when Johnson’s birdie was three shots better than Watney’s ugly double bogey from the middle of the fairway. The last time an overnight leader was off to such a catastrophic start was Johnson at the U.S Open only two months ago. Johnson finished that round in 82 and Watney was only one better on this day.

Elkington was probably the best from the tee to the green on the back nine but he missed two short birdie putts at the 12th and the 15th and then missed from 15 feet for an eagle at the long 16th. At the 17th, a long one-shotter, he ripped a beautiful three iron that ran just a yard too far and, from over the backof the green, saving three was all but impossible and his three-putt at the last saw him finish at nine-under 279.

McIlroy played with his characteristic abandon, running birdie putts at the hole and swinging beautifully but he missed the green with a middle iron second at the par-five 16th and couldn’t save the birdie. He finished with the best shot of the day on the final hole but it wasn’t close enough to make what would have been a tying three.

Watson came before Kaymer and Johnson and he found the final green in two shots and holed well from five feet for his second putt and 11-under 277.

The German, Kaymer, has not earned the recognition his talent deserved because McIlroy is the golden boy on the European tour and Americans, as a rule, focus on their own.

Kaymer's drive at the final hole was relatively short and his second failed to get up above the waste land short of the green but in the tradition of one of the most logical man ever to play the game, his fellow countryman Bernhard Langer, he pitched wisely just to the right of the flag and holed brilliantly from 15 feet for a par and 277.

In the final group came Johnson and after a birdie at the 16th from the hay left of the green he made a two at the 17th and walked to the final tee needing four to win.

He flew a drive miles right and into the crowd and from what just appeared to be a sandy lie he hit a terrific long second over the green. From there he played a good pitch to 10 feet but the putt everyone assumed was for the win missed on the low side.

Then came the dreaded moment when one of the Tour's rules official (pictured above) had to confront Johnson as he walked off the 18th green to tell him there might be a problem.

The sandy place Johnson found himself in was one of the thousand bunkers Pete Dye liberally sprayed all over the property and he had grounded his club in the sand. The attendant two-shot penalty dropped him back to Elkington’s score but Johnson could hardly be blamed for the mistake because it looked nothing like a traditionally constructed and maintained bunker. It was surrounded by literally hundreds of people and it looked like crowds had been traipsing through there all week.

The rule that did Johnson in is a simple one and every golfer knows the procedure. You cannot ever ground your club in a hazard. But Whistling Straits has a crazy number of bunkers and, from the television pictures, it seemed the gallery had trampled through many of them all week and by the end of the championship there were parts of bunkers that looked nothing like bunkers.

It was an easy mistake for Johnson to make under the pressure of the situation but one wonders if it was a mistake Jack Nicklaus or Nick Faldo would have made.

Who's to blame? The player ultimately has the responsibility and by all accounts there were any number of reminders plastered around the clubhouse and the tour office reminding players of the rule.

The caddy should have known but he was busy fighting the crowd, getting a yardage (a complicated task given the number of many options of club and line) and trying to get the right club in his man’s hand.

Being the last group of a major championship, there was unquestionably a walking rules official and there is a reasonable argument to say that had he been doing his job he would have anticipated Johnson may have an issue and warned him that he was in a hazard. Perhaps he was fighting the crowd but someone - some kind of rules official - should have been at Johnson’s ball before he arrived at it.

Either way it was a catastrophic mistake and one small consolation is that Johnson did not hole the putt for four and the ‘win’. To have lost in those circumstances would have been even more heartbreaking.

Whilst not quite in the Roberto de Vicenzo class of mistake (the Argentinian signed an incorrect card in the 1968 Masters that cost him a place in the playoff) it was a real shocker and the big-hitting American will long remember 2010 for his final-round 82 at Pebble Beach and his last hole in Wisconsin.

So instead of three in the playoff, it fell to Watson and Kaymer to decide the championship and it was the American who took the early lead when he followed a huge drive down the 10th fairway with a brilliant pitch. Kaymer came back with a fine tee shot at the 17th and he holed again from 15 feet to even the match and once again it was the 470-metre par four finished that would decide the winner. Both drove right and Watson went first and flew a six iron at the green but the rough gave him no help and his ball fell well shot and into the water. From there, the German was too sensible to try for something he didn’t need and after pitching out safely he hit a perfect seven iron to 12 feet and two putts from there was good enough.

It has been an extraordinary year in the major championships, one that has perhaps redefined the game. The final three majors of the season were won by non-Americans, Graham McDowell, Louis Oosthuizen and now Kaymer, and all three predominantly play their golf on the European Tour. They are truly world-wide players and that can only be a good thing for the popularity and growth of the game. No longer are the Americans the dominant force they were. They have many fine players but so now does the rest of the world.

Tiger Woods finished miles behind and it was a rarity to see a drive of his find the fairway. He relies now on Corey Pavin picking him to play in the Ryder Cup and it will be interesting to really see how he is playing when he comes to Victoria Golf Club and The Australian Masters in November.

How he emerges from this season is still the most interesting story in the game and next year will decide much in his quest to pass the Nicklaus record of 18 major championships.

Kaymer, though, was the champion this week and for anyone who has followed his progress this win was hardly a surprise.