Adam Scott swells the regular ranks of Australians on the European Tour this week when he tees up at the Scottish Open as part of his final preparations for The Open Championship.

Scott declared at the end of last season he would employ a new tactic at the 2017 Majors and play competitively the week prior to each, his appearance at Dundonald Links his first Scottish Open since 2009.

The 2013 Masters champion hasn’t played since missing the cut at the U.S. Open three weeks ago and will be looking to sharpen his links game with four rounds under tournament conditions ahead of Royal Birkdale.

The Queenslander has made no secret of the fact the Claret Jug is the trophy he covets the most and he will be motivated to get to Royal Birkdale where his lone appearance in 2008 yielded a T16 result.

Scott is one of nine Australasians teeing up in Ayrshire, New Zealand’s Ryan Fox the form player of the group after back to back career best finishes in the last two weeks.

Fox played his way into the field at Birkdale courtesy of his T4 result at last week’s DDF Irish Open, his second consecutive top-10 in the rich Rolex Series of tournaments which have debuted this year.

This week’s Scottish Open is the fourth of the Series which offers US$7,000,000 minimum purses and are designed to attract the world’s best players to Europe.

The ploy has worked this week with four of the world’s top-10 in the field and Sam Brazel, Scott Hend, Marcus Fraser, Andrew Dodt, Brett Rumford, Wade Ormsby and Jason Scrivener will need to be sharp if they are to contend.

All but Hend are playing for a place in the field at Birkdale, the big hitting Queenslander playing his third Open Championship in succession after debuting in 2005 and not playing again until 2015.

Ormsby was the best of the Australians in Ireland and has played enough good golf in recent weeks to harbour legitimate hopes of contending though there has been little in the way of form shown by the rest.