Rock rubs elbows with golf's big guns at Scottish Open

By Robert Rock,
Special for WorldGolf.com

The big guns flew in to Scotland last week to prepare for this week's Open Championship.

It's not often those of us who play solely on the European Tour find ourselves rubbing shoulders with the winner and runner-up of The Masters - and the current Open champion.

But Phil Mickelson, Ernie Els and Ben Curtis were at Loch Lomond for the Scottish Open. Ernie did OK, finishing joint third, and although Phil and Ben failed to make the cut I don't think they were too perturbed - it was more of an acclimatisation exercise for them.

What surprised a lot of us - and it was the subject of much discussion - was the poor state of the greens at Loch Lomond.

Normally they're immaculate - but this time they were quite shabby. In fact, they were some of the poorest we have played in Europe this year.

But that's no excuse for my showing. I had some equipment problems on the Wednesday when my clubs failed to show after having been taken away to be adjusted.

I didn't get a practice round, and merely walked the course. Having said that I was due out late on the Thursday so I was able to get some time in on the practice ground when they did turn up.

I went out with Simon Wakefield and Emanuele Canonica - and they were both off to a flyer while I was going in the opposite direction. I finished the day five over - nearly last, which is unusual for a score like that.

I never really recovered from that and missed the cut.

I think the performances at Loch Lomond might give us some clue as to the winner of this week's Open. I haven't seen how the course is set up at Royal Troon but I understand it's hard and fast - no real surprise there.

I don't think the truly long hitters will get too much advantage and I think somebody who plays steadily, hitting fairways consistently will emerge victorious - probably another outsider, maybe even a qualifier.

Thomas Levet, who won at Loch Lomond, has just the game for it and he will be boosted by the Scottish Open success. And somebody like Kenneth Ferrie might be a good outside bet.

In the run-up to the Open I've been interested to see Nick Faldo has joined the debate over belly putters.

He thought the fact they could still be used was"a sympathy vote for all those suffering".

What interested me most was not that we share the same view that we are surprised they haven't been banned - more the fact he's started using one.

Until recently he was top of the putting stats in Europe, so he would have been one of the last people I would have expected to use one.

My failure to qualify means I have a week off before we head off to Ireland early next week. But I might just catch a bit of the Open on the TV - I could be tempted...

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