Whatever you call it, the fact Australia's "Triple Crown" golf events have served as a stepping stone to greater success in recent years is indisputable.

In the last four years, a victory on our shores has provided a springboard for some of the game's biggest names to launch to career-high achievements.

It began with Ian Poulter in 2011, when the eccentric Englishman lit  up Victoria Golf Club to win the  Australian Masters.

By the time he returned to Australia 12 months later, he was arguably the game's most talked about player, having produced one of the greatest individual performances in Ryder Cup history to spark the "Miracle at Medinah", as well as notching the biggest win of his career at World Golf Championship's HSBC Champions.

Unfortunately for Poulter, his quest to retain the gold jacket at the 2012 Masters at Kingston Heath overlapped with Adam Scott's mission to "turn a gold one into a green one".

The Australian upstaged the defending champion in an epic final-day duel and then used the "rub" to become the first Australian to win at Augusta National in April of 2013.

When he returned home for his "green jacket tour" the following summer, the Queenslander was No.2 in the world having upstaged Tiger Woods to win The Barclays (a FedEx Cup play-off event) and preparing to take aim at the "Scotty Slam".

He won the Australian PGA title in his home state, then dominated in Melbourne – going back-to-back at the Masters again and winning the team event at the World Cup the following week with Jason Day.

All he needed to complete the set was the Australian Open crown the week after, but the Scotty Slam was broken up by the rise of Rory McIlroy, who stole the Stonehaven Cup away from him on a dramatic final-hole climax.

The Northern Irishman then used that "Open Injection" to notch a career year in 2014, in which he won two of the four majors - the Open Championship and the PGA Championship - as well as two other significant victories that would catapult him to No.1 in the world.

This meant that the Australian Open — like it will again this year — could boast the world's best player defending his crown in 2014, however McIlroy would have done to him what he did to Scott, as American superstar Jordan Spieth made the event his own and used the "Open Injection" to lift him to world No.1 the following year.

Not since the glory days of Tiger has a golfer put together a 12-month period as profitable as the one Spieth did in the wake of his incredible Australian Open performance, in which he played one of the great rounds in the event's history – an eight-under par 63 – to win by six shots.

In that 12 months, the 22-year-old won six events, including two majors — the US Masters and US Open — and the end-of-season Tour Championship play-off event that lifted him to the FedEx Cup.

The weight of evidence suggests something more than coincidence is at play here, but exactly why a win in Australia has benefited top international golfers recently is harder to pin down.

There is a strong view that playing on Australian courses forces players to elevate their short games, an idea that leading analyst and former major winner Ian Baker-Finch agrees with.

"The greens are so fast and the surrounds of the greens are so hard and fast - there is no rough around greens in Australian golf - so you have to be so careful," the 1991 British Open Champion said.

"You need to know when to back off and know when you can attack, because over the back of the greens is usually an automatic bogey or worse."

Baker-Finch is well-placed to comment, given he has watched Poulter, Scott, McIlroy and Spieth flourish post-Australia in his role as a TV analyst in the US, and also because he also credits his first big win in Australia – at the 1988 Masters at Huntingdale - for helping to launch his career into another stratosphere.

Scott, McIlroy and Spieth shared a combined five major wins  in the individual years immediately after their wins "Down Under".

Baker-Finch, who will be the lead analyst on Channel Seven's coverage of the triple crown events this summer, is not surprised by those results – for he considers tournaments in Australia to be an "all-round championship" test.

The Australian summer tees off on Thursday with the Australian Masters at Huntingdale Golf Club, before rolling onto the showcase event – the Australian Open in Sydney - the week after, and then the richest of the three tournaments – the European Tour co-sanctioned PGA Championship  the following week on the Gold Coast.

So, who will get the "rub" this year?

Australia's "Triple Crown" Summer

The Masters

Huntingdale Golf Club, Melbourne, Thursday-Sunday

Headline players: Adam Scott, Steve Bowditch, Nicolas Colsaerts, John Senden

Prizemoney: $750,000

The Open

The Australian Golf Club, Sydney, November 26-29

Headline players: Jordan Spieth, Adam Scott, Marc Leishman, Lee Westwood, Darren Clarke

Prizemoney: $1.25 million

The PGA Championship

Royal Pines Resort, Gold Coast, December 3-6

Headline players: Brandt Snedeker, Paul Lawrie, David Lingmerth, Robert Allenby

Prizemoney: $1.75 million