Ah, the lure of the links.

For all those years when the Barclays Scottish Open was played at Loch Lomond, it was widely assumed that the course’s parkland setting lay behind the reluctance of American players to come over to Scotland a week before the Open Championship. Now we know different. They just don’t want to come here at all.

Short of starting the tournament with a clambake party and asking Michelle McManus to sing the Star Spangled Banner, it’s hard to think what more the organisers could have done to encourage the transatlantic contingent to pitch up at Castle Stuart this week.

What better preparation could there be for a visit to Royal St George’s, a quirky seaside track in Kent, than a quirky seaside track by the Moray Firth? Goodness, they even built the thing barely a stone’s throw from Inverness Airport, which surely should have done the job.

And yet, the Americans have come in pitifully small numbers. Only six will be in the field when this year’s Scottish Open gets underway tomorrow, and one of them, Jason Knutzon, rarely plays in his homeland anyway. Granted, there are some seriously big names among the others -- none bigger than Phil Mickelson -- but at a time when American golfers should, as Jack Nicklaus put it the other day, “get out more,” their stay-put tendencies are all the harder to comprehend.

After all, it’s not as if the quality of competition on the other side of the pond is at the level it used to be. Time was when an American could argue that a 20-buck bounce game with his caddie would provide a sterner test than a European Tour event, but at a time when Europeans fill the top four slots in the world rankings and not one major trophy is in American hands, that argument just doesn’t hold water any more.

If US players want to make waves in the sport again then they better get used to travelling long-haul.

“It’s pretty clear that Americans have to raise their games to match the Europeans,” said Nicklaus on a brief visit to Gleneagles last week. “Too many American golfers know little beyond American golf and I’d like to see them travel more.”

Mark Parsinen, Castle Stuart’s American founder, is confident that his countrymen will see the light in due course. “It takes time to establish a reputation in golf,” said Parsinen. “I’m pleased that we’ve attracted a few American players, but I’m pretty sure that there will be a lot more in the years ahead. It’s always the same with a new venue; once the word gets around and it builds a reputation people become much more willing to play there.”

Maybe so, but Americans wouldn’t exactly be breaking new ground to turn up early to get a feel for links turf. Tom Watson made a point of doing exactly that -- his favourite warm-up course was Royal Dornoch -- and it would be hard to argue that there was anything wrong with the preparations of a man who put the claret jug on his mantlepiece five times.

Tiger Woods’ pre-Open Championship routine generally involved a week on the linkslands of Ireland. Payne Stewart was another from the same school of thought.

Patriotism would probably have brought Martin Laird back for the Scottish Open if it had been staged on a novelty golf course in Saltcoats, however, the Glaswegian, who spends most of his life playing on the US Tour, appreciates the different challenges links golf provides and the need to adjust to the different conditions on course appropriately.

“I thought that a few more [Americans] would come over,” said Laird “Links is so different to the American style of game. If you’ve not played on it for a while it does take you a little time to get used to it and to get your feel back around the greens.

“I’m surprised there’s not a few more over to get acclimatised.”

After his sensational victory at the Arnold Palmer Invitational earlier this year, Laird has clearly figured out how to play golf with an American accent. The pity is that so many US players these days know anything different.

“The fact is that if you want to be an international star then you have to go and play internationally,” was Nicklaus’ withering conclusion. “If you don’t, you only have yourself to blame.”