European Tour - Scottish Open

First topic message reminder :

There's little doubt that the Scottish Open is one of the most important events on the ET calendar outside the majors&WGCs. Last year's move of venue from Loch Lomond (after hosting the event for 15 consecutive years) to Castle Stuart received mainly good reviews, although there have been reservations expressed as well. There is a change in the title sponsor this year, and I think the organisers may feel quite happy at the moment that the previous deal with Barclays came to an end after last year's event.

Over the past few weeks I've been keeping an eye on the recent field strength history of the ET events, and to that extent it is quite interesting to have a look at the Scottish Open in comparison with some of the other events taking place around this time of the year. Apart from showing that this event has had the strongest field from all those European events, it also shows that it's been by far the most consistent/constant in that respect. And that's probably to be expected considering its strategic position in space and time...

Spoiler:

...although a slight warning should be raised perhaps as this year the OWGR field strength (looking to be 48 pts to the winner and quite close to the 46 pts bracket) is at its weakest level since the year 2000.

Luke Donald is the defending champion and apart from trying to defend his title, he will also celebrate his 52nd week as world number 1, placing him now at no. 5 amongst those with most weeks at the top of the ranks (Woods, Norman, Faldo and Ballesteros are the only ones ahead of him). The Scottish challenge should be very strong this week, with Martin Laird and Paul Lawrie the obvious two leading contenders. I wonder though if Paul Lawrie's rather controversial decision to skip the US Open and concentrate on ET events hasn't put more pressure on him then he would've liked lately to perforrm, and if so, there's likely to be even more pressure on him to do well in his home event... we'll see how he can cope with all that...

From this side of the water I'm expecting and hoping Harrington and McDowell to be in contention, but also wouldn't be surprised to see a couple of Italians doing well here (Molinari, Gagli, Matteo)... Anders Hansen is having a great start early this morning with birdies at each of the first 4 holes, with Franny following close by (he appears to be in tremendous form the last couple of weeks). Padraig, Stenson, Jaidee, Matteo and Marcel are also among the good starters early on, with Stephen Gallacher leading the home charge. As for Paul Casey... , I really think he needs to take a (loooooong) break....

princedracula wrote:Will it be a Scottish win at the Scottish Open? Last time when that happen was in 1999 when Monty won it...

Marc Warren is all of a sudden three shots ahead...

...and all of a sudden he's not ahead anymore! Oh dear...

Everyone seemingly doing there best not to try to win this outright!

Would love to see Franny win it, I really love his simple swing. Forza Francesco.

Wow! Super putt for Franny there for a play-off... but no matter what, at least Jeev should play in the Open next week...

All that yoga Jeev said he's been doing is paying off... Great win for the vey popular Indian! Apart from the last minute ticket to Royal Lytham, he'll also enjoy a welcome return to the top 100...

Deserving winner . . . . . in the end. But what a struggle from some very good players. Frannie needs to get his putter sorted if he wants to play at Medinah.

Lots of speculation from the Golf Channel guys that they'll be giving Castle Stuart a break for a year or so; any idea where it might go next year?

I thought it would be castle Stuart for one more year then a change, most likely to renaissance club. Personally I hope it's neither. I hate to see such an easy set up and can't see renaissance offering any more of a test. Let's get these pro's on a reasonably tough links the week prior to The Open.

Nice looking course, but some pretty uninspired golf at the end. Pressure does that sometimes.

So will this week "acclimating" help Phil?

gibson,
There seems to be a thought that a really tough assignment the week before a Major is not necessarily what the players want . . . . . Today's play showed that a little wind can make all the difference - looked a good test to me, they can always regulate par to satisfy the sadists!


Sr,
Can't have done him any harm, surely? But from what I've read it must be questionable whether Phil has the discipline to handle Lytham - wonder what the experts think?

gibsonk7 wrote:I thought it would be castle Stuart for one more year then a change, most likely to renaissance club. Personally I hope it's neither. I hate to see such an easy set up and can't see renaissance offering any more of a test. Let's get these pro's on a reasonably tough links the week prior to The Open.

No strong opinion as to the venue, but just want to correct any possible misconception that Renaissance will not be tougher than Castle Stuart. Having played Renaissance with good (Race to Dubai qualifier good) tour pro who stated that if they played a tour event there, par could win it, I can assure you that it is much tougher than Castle Stuart. CS was designed to be playable, Renaissance was designed to be a beast.

Have a look at it off the blue tees:

http://www.trcaa.com/the_course/course_tour/

BTW I've not played the new holes, not sure that they will make it easier. And as for tough links, the hardest I've played in Scotland are Carnoustie and Royal Aberdeen. Renaissance is certainly harder than Royal Aberdeen.

One would hope Kwin ... a world beater, multi major winner such as Phil "should" have the discipline to handle any course, but it just doesn't seem to be his style.

I've heard the forecast for next week is wet.

Yet another "first time" major winner? Luke and Lee are hoping so to be sure.