It’s a one-off and anyone can win, says Whiteford

Golf Correspondent

Thursday 7 July 2011

The venue for this week's Barclays Scottish Open has changed and so have the fortunes of Peter Whiteford, Scotland's frontrunner on the Race to Dubai rankings, writes Nick Rodger.

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Nick Rodger

The 30-year-old from Kirkcaldy, who sits 37th on the money list with a tidy sum of more than £320,000, is in the midst of an impressive run of form that has bolstered his confidence ahead of today’s opening round at Castle Stuart.

Whiteford, a three-time winner on the Challenge Tour, has made two previous appearances in the Scottish Open and missed the cut in both. The difference this week is that he knows he is in good form.“In the previous times I’ve played in the Scottish Open, I was never coming in to it playing very well,” said Whiteford, one of 16 home hopefuls hoping to make their presence felt on the leaderboard. “This time last year, I think I was playing particularly bad. The game has never been in good shape before this, but this year it’s fine.”Whiteford has every reason to be chipper. A trio of consecutive top-10s, which included a seventh place at the BMW PGA, an eighth at the Wales Open and a fourth at the Italian Open, kick-started his season. In between that productive spell, he successfully negotiated Open qualifying at Sunningdale to tee up a debut major appearance at Royal St George’s next week.As a native of that golfing hotbed of Fife, Whiteford is well versed in the arts of the links but even he admits it’s taking time to get used to the intricacies associated with this type of game again.“I grew up playing links golf and you don’t forget it,” he added. “But you have to get back to trying to perfect your shots from 100 yards in with wedges. My tactic is getting as close to the green as possible and then having a fiddly wee chip in. For me that is better than going the 100 yards with a cross wind and on to a firm green.”With his battle plan for an assault on Castle Stuart mapped out, Whiteford will now try again to make that breakthrough on the European Tour which he has been threatening.“You want to win every week,” said the 2010 Andalucian Open runner-up. “I’ll treat this as any other event, try to get off to a good start and give myself a chance come Sunday. Nobody here won’t think they can’t win. The strength in depth is amazing, but it’s a one-off and anyone can win it.”

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It’s a one-off and anyone can win, says Whiteford

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