How soon they forget.
It was but six years ago that Phil Mickelson walked into the midst of a storm on the opening day of the Open Championship at Royal Birkdale and crawled back with a 79.
It’s only three since Rory McIlroy limped in from the rain at Sandwich and wondered aloud that he might have to wait for a rare good weather week if he was ever going to win the Claret Jug.
Yet here were both the marquee names on the eve of the Aberdeen Asset Management Scottish Open daring, nay, actually hoping, that the weather gods bring on their worst at Royal Aberdeen.
Both the defending champion and his fellow Californian Rickie Fowler really want to be wearing two sets of waterproofs and have their umbrellas caught on a gale and carried out into the North Sea surf.
“We’re going to have some rough weather these next few days, which I’m actually really looking forward to,” said Phil, looking like he meant it. “I’ve played some of my best golf in bad weather. I remember Royal St George’s in 2011 in that awful weather playing some of my best.”
Rory, who has long retracted his Sandwich comment as being made in the heat of a disappointed moment, now suggested he even missed playing in his rainsuit while domiciled in the USA and being habitually “hauled off the course for even a little rain”.
Certainly the players seem to be getting what they want over this weekend, with a hotch-potch of conditions including heavy rain and strong winds, on as true and proper a traditional test of links golf as there is. But might this not be a case of ‘be very careful of what you wish for?’
The logic of playing the Scottish Open at a links course is inescapable. Links is the chief material in the fabric of Scottish golf, and the national open shouldn’t really be played on any other surface.
Similarly, it’s really the only proper way to prepare for the Open Championship, where there is a moratorium on any kind of golf course other than links.
However, the peculiar conditions of the seaside have a potential drawback.
The case in point is the final round of the 1996 Scottish Open at Carnoustie, won by Ian Woosnam, played in a gale on a course drying to glass-like conditions and barely five of the top 20 after 54 holes broke 80. Worse, a succession of swings were wrecked for the following week at Royal Lytham.
Rory, however, is convinced his return to the Scottish Open after a five-year absence is the right one, and has no fears of gathering storms.
“It looks like we get even a tougher test this week than next week at Hoylake,” he reckoned. “It’s definitely not a gentle introduction to links golf.
“I think we are going to get a bit of everything this week looks like a couple of days are nice and a couple of days aren’t so nice. Proper links conditions and a proper links tournament, really.”
McIlroy’s decision to play was not based on Mickelson’s double success last year, but on the grounds that he knew this was a proper, traditional links test not a stylised neo-links like Castle Stuart, Kingsbarns or the Trump International and therefore as near to Hoylake as he could get.
Rory spent last week at Hoylake, which he described as “relatively simple compared to other Open courses” and his mind is completely clear of all distractions.
“What can I say? I’m very single and very happy,” he said, in reference to the continuing frenzy about his social status.
He took a five day “lads’ holiday” with mates to Ibiza a bit more upmarket than the usual lads’ Balearic break perhaps, as they stayed on a large yacht.
“That was definitely needed,” he said. “I’m just going day-to-day, living my life, spending a bit more time back home in Northern Ireland with my parents.
“It was nice to win the BMW PGA but there’s a big second half of the season coming up obviously two majors, FedEx Cup, Ryder Cup here in September, and I’m up in the Race to Dubai.
“So I went to Ibiza and really got back into it coming back, had a really good week of practice and training last week and, really, that’s sort of rejuvenated me.”
Rory thinks that Hoylake sets up well for him, but is thinking primarily about this week.
He said: “It’s important to focus on this week. I did an interview on the 18th green and the Claret Jug was in the background.
“Sam Torrance was in the hospitality section, leaned out and shouted ‘It’s right behind you.’ I shouted back ‘I’ll think about that next week’.”