Show notes
The Scottish Open Is Giving Golf What It Has Been Missing
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The Scottish Open has always been one of the best lead-ins to the Open Championship. Rory McIlroy’s shot into 18. Robert MacIntyre winning his national open. Phil Mickelson using it as a springboard before winning at Muirfield in 2013.
But this year feels a little different.
Because this year, the Scottish Open has something golf fans have wanted since the sport split apart: a field that actually brings everybody back together.
Everybody in the Same Place
Justin Ray put it perfectly. This is the most excited he has ever been for the word co-sanctioned.
Because with the Scottish Open co-sanctioned by the PGA Tour and DP World Tour, the field gets a lot more interesting. Jon Rahm is there. Tyrrell Hatton is there. Patrick Reed is there. Rory McIlroy is there. Chris Gotterup is defending. And suddenly, this feels like more than just the week before the Open Championship.
It feels like golf looking the way it is supposed to look.
Trey’s point is simple. Whatever happens next with LIV, the PGA Tour, the DP World Tour or the future structure of the sport, this is what fans want. The best players competing against the best players.
That part does not need to be complicated.
Why the Scottish Open Works
National opens just feel different.
The US Open. The Italian Open. The Spanish Open. The Scottish Open. There is a pride and energy around those events that you cannot fake. The crowd cares differently. The players feel it differently. And when Robert MacIntyre nearly won in 2023, then came back and won his national open in 2024, it reminded everyone why this tournament matters.
The Scottish Open is not a major. But when the field is this strong and the Open Championship is sitting right behind it, the week has real weight.
Justin also makes the point that this tournament has quietly delivered year after year. Aaron Rai beating Tommy Fleetwood in a playoff. Min Woo Lee beating Matt Fitzpatrick in a playoff. Xander Schauffele winning by one. Rory beating MacIntyre by one. MacIntyre winning by one. Gotterup beating Rory and Marco Penge by two.
As Justin says, it has been banger after banger.
The Rahm Factor
Jon Rahm is one of the biggest reasons this field matters.
Justin brings up a wild stat: Rahm is still third on the PGA Tour in wins in the 2020s, behind only Rory McIlroy and Scottie Scheffler, even though he has been gone for more than two years.
That is the reminder.
Rahm has not disappeared as a player. We just do not see him in this kind of setting as often anymore. So when he does show up against Rory, Hatton, Reed, Gotterup and the rest of this field, it gives the week a different kind of edge.
This is the part golf has been missing.
What It Means for the Open
Trey asks the question everyone asks this time of year: how much does the Scottish Open actually tell us about the Open Championship?
Justin says there is some correlation, but it is not perfect. Sometimes it is just hot players staying hot. Sometimes the conditions line up. Sometimes they do not.
Phil Mickelson won the Scottish Open in 2013 and then won the Open Championship the next week. Chris Gotterup won the Scottish Open last year and played well at the Open. So it can matter. It is not a guarantee, but it gives us clues.
And this year, with the kind of field that is showing up, those clues are a lot more interesting.
The Phil Mickelson Conversation
The Scottish Open also brought the conversation back to Phil Mickelson.
In 2013, Phil won the Scottish Open, then went on to win the Open Championship at Muirfield. For a player who never got the US Open, that Open title became one of the defining wins of his career.
Trey and Justin talk about how strange it is to look at where Phil’s story is now compared to where it was just a few years ago. After winning the 2021 PGA Championship at Kiawah and becoming the oldest major champion ever, Phil had a very different place in the sport. He was still not Tiger, but he had become something like golf’s cool uncle. The Wanamaker Trophy. The jokes. The “hit bombs” persona. The whole thing worked.
And then it changed fast.
The LIV fallout, the gambling stories, the reported allegations and everything else around him have completely reshaped the way people talk about Phil. Trey is clear that none of the alleged behavior is being excused. Justin’s word for the whole thing is simple: sad.
Maybe there is another chapter eventually. But right now, it is hard to know what that would even look like.
Why This Week Matters
That is why this Scottish Open feels bigger than usual.
It has Rory. It has Rahm. It has Hatton. It has Reed. It has Gotterup defending. It has a national open crowd. It has the Open Championship waiting on the other side.
For one week, golf gets closer to what everyone has been asking for.
The best players. Same field. Same tournament.
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