RORY McLROY, Phil Mickelson, Justin Rose, Rickie Fowler .

. . it's the kind of shimmering cast list that would usually be up for an Oscar. July's production of the Aberdeen Asset Management Scottish Open at Gullane is shaping up to be a blockbuster. Stephen Gallacher wants to be playing a major role in it, of course, but he knows it will be tough at the top.

"I've been telling those players that Gullane is rubbish," he said with a smile and a wink as he looked ahead to the national championship that will be staged the week before the Open itself at St Andrews. "I don't want them to come because it'll make it harder for me. Seriously though, it is spectacular. I try to be honest with the boys and tell them all how fair a test it is. It's all in front of you and there's nothing that's going to scare you. It's a fitting golf course for the stature of the tournament."

That stature continues to grow each year as the £3.25m Scottish Open goes from strength to strength although the turn out for yesterday's first playing of the new layout that will be used for the championship was not quite in the same league as the draw sheet for next month's showpiece. On this composite course, you had a gaggle of golf writers with their composite swings muttering a colourful composition of cursings as those aforementioned swipes and thrashes sent balls skittering and skiting all over the parish.

"Every week now, it's tough to win, with the fields being so strong," added Gallacher as he mulled over the rigours of competition at the top level. "But more so this one, with 12 Ryder Cup players, the world No.1 and Phil Mickelson, arguably the second highest profile player of my generation, when you take out Tiger Woods.

"Phil is the one to thank for the quality of the field by winning the Scottish Open and then the Open just down the road at Muirfield a week later. A lot of the guys have changed their routine and preparations for majors since then.

"A lot of the guys pencil the Scottish Open into their schedule not just as a warm-up but also because of the stature of the tournament. The Scottish boys certainly won't be looking at it as a warm-up, though. We're looking to win it and then we will look at the Open."

As Gallacher waxed lyrical about Gullane's abundant charms and challenges, Peter Adams, the championship director of the Scottish Open, was positively drooling at the prospect of what lies ahead. "Of all of the great fields we have had for the Scottish Open, the field that we have established this year must be one, if not, the best that has ever played this event," he said unashamedly.

While the composite course, featuring 16 holes of Gullane No.1 and two from Gullane No.2, will pose a unique challenge, Gallacher is well accustomed to the various nooks and crannies of this terrific expanse of East Lothian golfing terrain. "I must have played Gullane hundreds of times," he noted. "I've mainly played with a lot of guys I played amateur golf with. We play a lot of money matches and I usually lose all the time, because they get the member's bounce. I know the course well and, hopefully, that knowledge gives me an extra edge. Any tournaments where you go back to the same course every year it can give you a bit of continuity because you learn where to hit it and, more importantly, where to miss it. I've got that around here which most of the guys won't have and that's a big advantage."

While many will be making this golfing trip into the unknown, there is one player who is definitely not going to be meandering along the A198 to Gullane. "We have had discussions with Tiger Woods," added Adams. "In fact I sat next to his manager Mark Steinberg at the tour dinner recently. He did tell me that Tiger was planning to play much more golf but unfortunately the Scottish Open is not in his plans for this year. We are talking to them all the time and maybe that will change but not this year."

Given the way Woods is playing just now, he'd probably struggle to make the grade in the Gullane Saturday medal let alone the Scottish Open.