After the controversy raised in the build up to the Aberdeen Asset Management Scottish Open at Castle Stuart, yesterday both the tournament and its course emerged from a potentially uncomfortable day with reputations intact.
Graeme McDowell, champion in the 2008 Scottish Open, last week suggested that the event had lost prestige because of the choice of venue. Since conditions yesterday could not have been more conducive to low scoring – particularly for the morning starters – anyone who found any justification in such a claim could have expected to be given plenty ammunition.
The Northern Irishman has encountered something of a backlash for his remarks, though, the slightly dubious tenor of which was summed up by Scotland's leading player Paul Lawrie. Indeed, the world No.49 seemed to suggest no European Tour player should ever break ranks on such matters.
"It doesn't matter whether he is right or wrong, he shouldn't have said what he said. That's my opinion," said Lawrie. "You're a European Tour player, you support other players and their tournaments. If you don't want to play, then don't play.
"It's unlike him; I've never heard him say something like that before. He is a good lad and I've got a lot of time for him. I don't know what happened on this occasion."
The vigour of Lawrie's defence of his home Open was commendable, but his reasoning seemed to offer something of an indication as to why modern professional sportsmen so rarely choose to drop their guard and instead feel the need to conform.
Those who believe that too much modern sport is about the packaging rather than the substance might even feel concerned by his argument and its implications about the extent to which players feel expected to toe the line. McDowell had duly apologised for his comments before the tournament got underway but one now has to wonder whether he did so because he now believes he had been mistaken or that he had merely got it wrong by airing them publicly. Either way, this beautiful links course seemed to come up with the best possible answers when at its most vulnerable yesterday.
It once again yielded eagles and birdies galore just as it was designed to – with its wide open fairways and array of risk-and-reward holes – however, many among the field were also at sixes and sevens, with the latter registered no fewer than 10 times among those morning starters who had the opportunity to attack the course in such favourable conditions. Even one of the home contingent, James Byrne, ran up two in succession at – perhaps aptly – holes six and seven.
Rather than relying on Tour solidarity, it is far better that the course continues to stand up to scrutiny by providing veteran golfers with an opportunity to get into condition to claim surprise wins at the Open the following week. That has been the custom over the past two years, with Darren Clarke and Ernie Els winning the Claret Jug. While the number of current leading players taking part in the Scottish Open has steadily declined since the move from Loch Lomond – only two of the world's top 25 are here this week – both Clarke and Els generated their best form by playing here, the former claiming his first major and the latter the first for a decade.
Perhaps the reason for their success was best articulated yesterday by arguably the best player in the field, Phil Mickelson, as the American outlined just why he has found the move to Castle Stuart so useful in his quest to come to terms with links golf. In essence, the case he made centred on the need to work in relative peace on the changes of approach that are required to succeed in this different form of the game, as opposed to the target golf most professionals spend much of the season engaged in.
"It gives you a chance to hit all the shots we'll play next week [at the Open] – to have bump-and-run iron shots into the greens, run shots up, putt from off the green, bump and run chips, putt on fescue-type greens, but not get beat up the week before," he said. "You can only handle so much punishment the week of the Open, where the rough is so thick and the penalty for a miss is so great, so it's nice to have a week where you don't get punished and you're still hitting the same shots."
It will be interesting, then, to find out if next week's Open champion will once again emerge from the Scottish Open field. Perhaps all the moreso since this tournament is committed to move to the more established and, in the eyes of many, more traditional links of Royal Aberdeen next year.
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