Bernd Wiesberger is looking to create history this week by becoming the first player to successfully defend the Aberdeen Standard Investments Scottish Open.
The Austrian won at The Renaissance Club last year after beating Benjamin Hebert in a play-off, in doing so adding his name to a list of past winners that reads like a who's who of golf.
However, none have succeeded in returning the title and Wiesberger returns to Berwick hoping to break that run.
“It doesn't happen very often for me that you defend a title, especially one of this magnitude,” he said.
“We walked in on Monday after taking the Covid test, staying on site for the week and walked past a couple - not a couple but everyone who is on that list is a legend of European and international golfer, so very proud to have added my name to that.
“I'm aware that nobody has successfully defended it, so I will do my best to do that.
“It was obviously memorable week for me, it's going to stick with me for a long time.
“I've had a lovely week here last year. Not only from the golf side but in general, I love coming to Scotland and play tournament golf up here.”
Wiesberger scored 22 under par last year but with the tournament moved to October because of the coronavirus pandemic, the 34-year-old is not expecting to go as low this time around.
Austrian Golf Federation just called and told me they were gonna give me my amateur status back after the last two tournaments in Valderrama and Winged Foot. Now playing off Hcp 5 👍🏼😂 #USOpen
— Bernd Wiesberger (@BWiesberger) September 20, 2020
However, scoring is almost certain to be better than his last two events at Valderrama and Winged Foot.
“Obviously the main difference is the time of the year,” he added. “It's cold, four layers, wind has picked up. We had perfect conditions in 2019, which then obviously led to very low scoring.
“All in all I was quite pleased with the way I played at Winged Foot. Obviously I've had a couple not too good spells with my approach to play. I drove it well through the week.
“It was a great test, but hopefully, you know, we're going to be able to definitely score a little bit lower in the upcoming weeks, and that those two events made a bit of an exception to the norm, at least from a scoring point of view.”
