Scottish Open 2021: Form guide for this week's Rolex Series event

Week two of the 'British Isles Swing' takes the players to the coastal town of North Berwick, for the lucrative Scottish Open.

Sponsored by abrdn, which is merely a rebranding of Standard Life Aberdeen, the tournament returns to The Renaissance Club for a third straight year.

This week's tournament will be the second of four Rolex Series events to be contested on the European Tour this season.

It will also be the final opportunity to taste good old British coastal conditions before the action heads for Kent, and next week's Open Championship at Royal St George's.

But, for the next few days, the focus is on East Lothian and a 300-acre site which overlooks the south bank of the Firth of Forth.

The Renaissance Club was opened in April 2008, although its routing has changed since then after additional land was acquired nearby.

The course is laid out close to a number of superb Scottish golfing gems, and located approximately 20 miles east of Edinburgh.

In addition to being in close proximity to the iconic links of Gullane, North Berwick and Archerfield, it is also barely two miles north-east of Open venue Muirfield.

On the tee

Not surprisingly the tournament has attracted an excellent field, possibly the best on Tour so far this year - outside of those staged in the United States.

Four of the world's top five, as well as 11 of the leading 30, will be fine-tuning their games ahead of next week's final major championship of 2021.

Latest odds for this week's Scottish Open

Newly-crowned US Open champion Jon Rahm leads the way, along with a number of leading Americans who include Justin Thomas, Collin Morikawa and Xander Schauffele.

There are also a handful of highly-ranked Brits such as world No 11 Rory McIlroy, who will be joined on the tee by Tyrrell Hatton, Matthew Fitzpatrick, Lee Westwood and Tommy Fleetwood.

With the exception of Thomas, most of the top-ranked players have enjoyed a sprinkling of T10s over the past few months, although the world No 3 did finish tied-9th on his only previous trip to The Renaissance Course two years ago.

Of this elite group of golfers arriving from the United States, the accurate Morikawa should be able to get to grips with the course as well as any of them.

Being a coastal location, which means frequently changeable weather conditions, an ability to scramble successfully is usually important.

With this in mind, Ian Poulter could be a strong e/w shout. The 45-year-old has enjoyed a consistent run of performances this year, highlighted by a podium finish at Colonial Country Club in Texas.

His two previous starts at The Renaissance Club have yielded finishes of T6 and T14.

The course

The Renaissance Club is a links course with a little more vegetation than normal, and a scarcity of dunes, while water will not be an issue this week - unless it happens to rain heavily.

Scoring in each of the two previous instalments has differed greatly. In 2019, when the tournament was first staged here in mid-July, the eventual champion Bernd Wiesberger was 22-under-par (262) for 72 holes. The 36-hole cut was 137, as 27 players shot lower than 270.

Latest odds for next week's Open Championship at Royal St George's

One year later, when the tournament was delayed until the first week of October because of the pandemic, winner Aaron Rai fired 273 (11 under par), with one-under securing a spot for the weekend.

The course had been toughened up in-between tournaments, although most of this sizeable difference was down to a change of dates - from summer to early autumn.

The venue's main defence is its heavily contoured putting surfaces.

Prior to hosting its first Scottish Open, the course had been used for a 36-hole pre-qualifying tournament ahead of the 2018 Open Championship at Carnoustie.

Twitter: Andy Swales@GolfStatsAlive

MC* - Missed Additional 54-Hole Cut

Note: List Contains Leading Reserves