World No.
1 Rory McIlroy confirmed he will contest the Aberdeen Assert Management Scottish Open and a week prior to his Open Championship defence.
McIlroy's intentions come just a week after fellow Open Champion and 2013 Scottish Open winner Phil Mickelson indicated he will also return to the Scottish Open It will be McIlroys fifth appearance in Scotland's premier event since making his debut as a then amateur in the 2005 tournament at Loch Lomond.
A year ago McIlroy set a then new Royal Aberdeen course record 64 before the Friday fright of a 78 and eventually share 14th place and nine strokes adrift of Justin Rose. Despite his disappointment McIlroy drew on the Aberdeenshire links experience to then go on and capture a first Open Championship triumph at Royal Liverpool.
"The Scottish Open is definitely on my schedule this year and I'm looking forward to it given we played such a great links course last year up at Royal Aberdeen," said McIlroy. "I haven't played Gullane 1 but I know a lot about the course from my amateurs days as the course has hosted all the great Scottish amateur events, so it's going to be a great challenge and like Royal Aberdeen, the perfect warm-up before heading over to St. Andrews for The Open."
And McIlroy pointed out the Scottish Open will be the fourth of four 'links' venues he will compete before defending the Claret Jug starting on July 16th.
"I've got a PGA Championship media day up at Whistling Straits on the Friday before the U.S. Open so I will then spend the weekend up there playing a few more practice rounds," he said. "Then it's off to Chambers Bay up in Washington State where the U.S. Open is being held this year and after that I'm back to Ireland for the Irish Open at Royal Country Down.
"I've then got a couple of weeks break before going over to Scotland for the Scottish Open, so what better practice could I get playing on two links-like courses at Whislting Straits and Chambers Bay before two of the best true links venues in Royal County Down and Gullane?"
McIlroy however found himself at the wrong end of the leaderboard after a poor start to the WGC-Cadillac Championship at Doral
McIlroy described missing the cut in last week's Honda Classic as a useful "kick up the backside" ahead of his bid to complete the career grand slam by winning the Masters at Augusta next month.
But it did not appear to have had the desired effect as the Open champion struggled to four over par after nine holes of his opening round on the "Blue Monster" to lie joint 69th in the elite 74-man field.
Starting on the back nine, McIlroy failed to birdie the par-five 10th and then bogeyed the 11th after finding a greenside bunker with his approach and missing from 12 feet for par.
The 25-year-old also failed to get up and down from sand on the 17th before a costly double bogey on the 18th, where he found the middle of the fairway with a superb drive but then pulled his second shot into the water left of the green.
Thankfully for McIlroy there is no halfway cut this week but the Northern Irishman was still nine shots off the pace being set by American pair Ryan Moore and JB Holmes, with France's Alexander Levy a shot behind on four under.
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