Tour "delighted" with field for Castle Stuart
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Full details of all Scottish Open ticket and hospitality offers can be found at:
Also available are tables in the Skean Dhu Hospitality for Saturday 14th July and, new for this year, additional hospitality places in the panoramic top floor of the Castle Stuart clubhouse on all four days, priced from £219 plus VAT per person
ADVANCE ticket savings are still available for the Aberdeen Asset Management Scottish Open with adult one day tickets currently costing £30 — a reduction of £5 on the gate price. Adult season tickets are currently priced at £70, offering a £10 saving on the gate price.
"However, if the event goes well at Castle Stuart this year, which we fully expect it too, then it puts them in a good position to have the tournament for another year."
"Once it’s finished and the dust has settled then we’ll look back on two years at Castle Stuart before deciding if we want to come back or would we think about somewhere else," said Adams.
Adams maintains the focus is very much on this year’s tournament, but a strong turnout can only help lend itself to the case for the event to return next year.
The European Tour do have the option of taking it back to Castle Stuart in 2013 as well, but as yet no decision has been made as to whether it will or not.
That community spirit may well be needed again this year.
"We cannot necessarily hope for wall to wall sunshine — it would be great if it happened — but a fair deal and I think everyone is going to have a tremendous event."
"What I want for this year and what Castle Stuart deserves, our new title sponsor Aberdeen Asset Management deserves, the Scottish Government deserves and the Highland community in general is a solid tournament with let’s say fair weather," he said.
Having witnessed for himself the efforts gone to by people to help when Castle Stuart needed it most, Adams insists this year’s Scottish Open is deserving of a competition where the golf and not the weather provides the only talking points.
But cope they did, aided by the help and goodwill of the Highland community, who desperately pulled out all the stops to make sure that the tournament at least reached a satisfactory conclusion.
A thunder storm of sizeable proportions 12 months ago that led to landslides on the first and 12th holes, causing play to ultimately be cancelled on the Saturday and ultimately reducing the Scottish Open to 54 holes, was an almost unbelievable scenario for Castle Stuart and the European Tour to cope with.
"What we hope we don’t get, however, is a weather event anything like last year."
"There’s also been a bit of work done on the infrastructure in terms of the drainage, but generally speaking we are dealing with the same gold course on the same piece of land.
"They’ve narrowed a few fairways, put some new bunkers in, put some new tees in to give it some extra length, so it’s going to be a bit of a sterner test for the players.
"However, Castle Stuart have made some tweaks and improvements to the course.
"We’ve always been confident that it’s a top quality, world class, golf course," he said.
Adams has had a chance to look over the alterations and he believes the course itself could play at least two more shots difficult for this year’s tournament, which takes place from 12-15th July.
Castle Stuart have since taken these comments on board and several holes have been changed, whether it be in length, new bunkers being added, fairways narrowed, or the rough being grown longer in places.
There were, however, slight concerns that some of the fairways were too wide, while some suggested it was not quite the test it should have been as Donald won it with a final score of 19 under par for the three rounds of golf that were played.
Player feedback was, according to Adams, "very positive" in the aftermath of the tournament making its debut at Castle Stuart last year, especially as it gave them the opportunity to play a links course before the Open championship.
"I think we’ve got to be delighted with the field and I think it will continue to strengthen as the years ago on if we continue to play on a links course."
"It’s incredibly solid and while we’ve not got Phil Mickelson, we’ve got the world number one Luke Donald along with other great players.
"We’ve got nine major champions, so I think you can certainly say that we’ve got one of the best fields on the European Tour all year.
"We counted it up and we’ve got 19 players out of the top 60 in the world this year, while we had 17 last year.
"I think if it’s not on a level with last year’s field then it’s very, very close," he said.
Phil Mickelson may not be returning due to other commitments, but championship director Peter Adams still maintains the field is one of the best on the European Tour.
World number one Luke Donald, who lifted the title in 2011, heads an entry list that includes familiar faces such as Padraig Harrington, Louis Oosthuizen, Ernie Els, Miguel Angle Jimenez and top Scottish golfers Paul Lawrie and Martin Laird to name but a few.
Despite the sponsorship issue, taking the Scottish Open to Castle Stuart from its previous home at Loch Lomond remains a popular choice with players if the field for this year’s event is anything to go by.
It was, however, not until March that Aberdeen Asset Management finally agreed to succeed Barclays, with help from the Scottish government.
There was a degree of uncertainty regarding the tournament after Barclays, the title sponsors, opted to step down in September last year.
CASTLE Stuart’s hopes of keeping the Scottish Open at least until next year have been enhanced with a leading European Tour official declaring himself "delighted" with the standard of player entry.
