The golf courses are the stars of the East Lothian region of Scotland — Muirfield, North Berwick West Links, Gullane (three courses), Royal Musselburgh, Acherfield, and Dunbar. Those are just a few of the most-recognized. But this week, the world’s No. 1 player and U.S. Open champion Jon Rahm is back for the Scottish Open along with a long list of “A-List” Americans and European stars.
The Renaissance Club in North Berwick is hosting Rahm, Justin Thomas, newlywed Xander Scauffele, Rory McIlroy, Collin Morikawa, Lee Westwood, Tommy Fleetwood, Scottie Scheffler, Matthew Fitzpatrick and Will Zalatoris, among others.
With so many famous courses in the region, Renaissance (pronounced “Re-NAY-sance”) is a total newcomer, opened in 2008. It sits directly east of The Honourable Company of Edinburgh Golfers, aka Muirfield Golf Club, the Augusta National of Scotland. During our last visit to Muirfield (2019) when one of our group mentioned the neighboring Renaissance Club, one of the caddies quickly snapped: “It’s sh-a-a-a-t!” Which is manure with a Scottish accent.
It may not be held in high esteem by East Lothian purists, but it has many of the world’s best on site with play beginning on Thursday.
Last year the pandemic moved the tournament to October and it was Aaron Rai beating Tommy Fleetwood in a playoff. Both had finished at 11-under par, a shot better than Robert Rock.
With the return of the Open Championship next week at Royal St. George’s, this week is a perfect warmup — worst scenario, it is a links course, unlike last week’s Irish Open at Mount Juliet Estates, a very Parkland-style course.
When you’re in Scotland, it’s all about the weather and it looks like a rainy Scottish Open this week. There’s rain in the forecast for Wednesday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday. That’s part of the deal. Good news is Thursday should be dry and high winds are NOT expected and that is the main element that protects the integrity of links courses. Without wind, there are low scores to be had, especially with rain softening things considerably.
Newcomer to the Scottish Open is world’s No. 4, Collin Morikawa. It’s his first trip to Scotland but he’s very familiar with a lot of European Tour players.
“I’ve seen Sam Horsfield, probably since I’ve been ten,” Morikawa explained. “Sean Crocker, I saw him earlier today. We grew up 30 minutes from each other. I’ve known Sean Crocker since literally 10, 12 years old. So seeing a couple guys like those two, seeing Min Woo Lee who I played with quite a few times in amateur golf; I saw I got paired with Bobby MacIntyre (Scotland) for the first couple days, so that will be fun. Obviously good Walker Cup memories on my end, probably his, as well.
“You know,” Morikawa continued, it’s just cool to see a lot of young guys. Those are the guys that we resonate with the best because we’ve gone through the process all together. We’ve seen each other’s golf game for a while. It just makes things kind of a little more fun when you’re paired with these guys or you see them because I’ve grown up with them. It just makes things a little more comfortable when you travel quite some ways to get over here.”
Morikawa goes out early on Thursday with MacIntyre and European Tour icon Lee Westwood.
The feature afternoon group has Rahm, McIlroy and J.T. going at 1 p.m. (8 a.m. EDT).
