Scots contingent ready for Castle Stuart
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TWO-TIME Major champion Sandy Lyle (below), World Cup winner Marc Warren and twice European Tour winner Alastair Forsyth are set to lead the home challenge for honours at the Barclays Scottish Open next month.
Several of golf’s leading players including Luke Donald, Lee Westwood, Graeme McDowell and Phil Mickelson have already confirmed their attendance at Castle Stuart, but fans will be hoping for a Scottish winner.
Lyle, Warren and Forsyth will join a host of their fellow countrymen all hoping to emulate Colin Montgomerie who, to date, is the only Scottish golfer to win the prestigious title, that triumph coming at Loch Lomond in 1999.
Former Ryder Cup player Lyle has been in sparkling form on the European Senior Tour this season, a win in the ISPS Handa Senior World Championship at Mission Hills in China in March helping him to his current position of third on the Senior Tour Order of Merit.
Forsyth and Warren have been dividing their time between The European Tour and the Challenge Tour this season and both will be looking to bring their considerable experience to bear in their respective title challenges on the spectacular Moray Firth links.
Forsyth’s last European Tour victory came in the 2008 Madeira Islands Open, while Warren’s came on Scottish soil in August 2007 at the Johnnie Walker Championship at Gleneagles, three months before he and Montgomerie combined to bring Scotland its first World Cup triumph at Mission Hills.
Montgomerie himself will also be in action at Castle Stuart. The 2010 Ryder Cup Captain, who turns 48 on Thursday, has turned his attention back to his own golf following his successful stewardship of the European team at Celtic Manor and has shown signs, particularly with his top seven finish in the BMW PGA Championship at Wentworth Club, that he is ready to challenge once again.
Other Scottish players in action who will feel the benefit of the home support include World number 24 and two-time winner on the US PGA Tour Martin Laird, the 1999 Open Champion Paul Lawrie; the emerging talents of David Drysdale, Steven O’Hara and Peter Whiteford; and European Tour champions Richie Ramsay, Gary Orr and Stephen Gallacher.
