Phil Mickelson will hope to join an exclusive club this week as he bids to become the first player to successfully defend the Aberdeen Asset Management Scottish Open title, and the fourth American to win the same European Tour event in back-to-back years.
Mickelson achieved the first leg of a glorious double 12 months ago, winning Scotland’s national Open before adding the Claret Jug to his bulging trophy cabinet courtesy of a stunning final day display at Muirfield the following week.
The five-time Major Champion will now pit his considerable talents against one of the strongest fields in the history of the £3million tournament, which will be played for the first time at Royal Aberdeen.
The illustrious line-up contains no fewer than 23 players from inside the top 60 of the Official World Golf Ranking, ten Major Champions, eight former European Tour Number Ones, 94 European Tour winners and eight former Aberdeen Asset Management Scottish Open champions.
Major Champions Justin Rose of England and Northern Ireland's Rory McIlroy, the World Numbers Six and Eight respectively, will form a formidable barrier to Mickelson’s hopes of emulating the feats of his compatriots Bob Byman (the 1977 and 78 KLM Opens), Tom Watson (The 1982 and 83 Open Championships) and Tiger Woods (on 12 occasions), the only Americans to mount a successful title defence on The European Tour.
Two weeks ago, Rose returned to the winners’ enclosure for the first time since his 2013 US Open Championship triumph, winning the Quicken Loans National on the US PGA Tour.
Rose will be making his first appearance in the Aberdeen Asset Management Scottish Open since 2011, when he finished in a tie for 14th place at Castle Stuart Golf Links. It will be the eighth time he has played in the tournament, with his best performance coming in 2002, when he finished fifth.
McIlroy, meanwhile, will be hoping to bounce back from the disappointment of missing the cut in the Irish Open.
The BMW PGA Champion has not featured in the Aberdeen Asset Management Scottish Open since 2009 but, like many members of the star-studded field, has been lured back by the fact that the last four Open Champions – Mickelson, Ernie Els (2012), Darren Clarke (2011) and Louis Oosthuizen (2010) – have all teed up in the tournament the week before their Major success.
That glittering quartet of Major men are all heading to Aberdeen, where Els will seek to become only the second player – after Ian Woosnam – to win the Aberdeen Asset Management Scottish Open on three occasions.
The South African first triumphed by one shot from American Tom Lehman in 2000, before doubling his tally of titles in 2003, when Clarke finished runner-up.
The home challenge will be spearheaded by the Omega Dubai Desert Classic Champion Stephen Gallacher, currently in tenth place in The Race to Dubai; US PGA Tour members Russell Knox and Martin Laird, born in Inverness and Glasgow respectively; The 1999 Open Champion Paul Lawrie, who has played in 22 of the last 23 editions of the tournament; and his fellow Aberdeen native Richie Ramsay.
Other notable names in the field include the 2011 winner Luke Donald of England; his compatriots and fellow Ryder Cup heroes Ian Poulter and Lee Westwood; Denmark’s Thomas Björn, the current leader of The Race to Dubai; in-form Swede Jonas Blixt; and American stars Rickie Fowler, Ryan Palmer, Kevin Stadler – fresh from his second placed finish last week at the Alstom Open de France – and Jimmy Walker, a three-time winner on the USPGA Tour this season.
Royal Aberdeen, which was founded in 1780 and is the world’s sixth oldest golf club, will host its first European Tour event this week. The 6,867 yards, par 71 layout, which staged the Scottish Seniors Open from 1993-95, will be the 18th different course in Scotland to host European Tour competition since 1972, when the Tour was inaugurated.
