John Senden is the highest ranked Australian in this week’s Scottish Open field, the two time PGA TOUR winner making the journey to the historic Gullane links as part of his preparations for next week’s Open Championship at St Andrews.

It is Senden’s first appearance at the
event since 2002 when the tournament had a permanent home at Loch Lomond.

The Gullane course will offer a very
different style of golf to Loch Lomond but one more in line with what the
players will find at St Andrews next week.

Senden is just one of a host of PGA TOUR
players who have made the trip to the UK early to acclimatise to the Scottish
conditions, Rickie Fowler, Phil Mickelson and Jimmy Walker among them.

The Scottish Open features one of the
strongest European Tour fields all year and provides an excellent opportunity
for the rank and file Tour members to measure their games against some of the
best in the world.

That number includes Andrew Dodt, Wade
Ormsby, Scott Hend, Richard Green and Marcus Fraser this week, all of whom ply
their trade full time in Europe.

The Gullane course has hosted several world
class amateur events but this week marks its biggest Professional tournament.

It will be an unknown quantity for most in
the field though as a regular host of Open Qualifying events, most recently in
2013, some will have played it.

Of the European Tour regulars Marcus Fraser
is in the best form of the Australians having made the cut at the recent US
Open and finishing T15 in France Last week.

It’s been a steady year for the two time
Tour winner who missed much of 2014 with a wrist injury and has missed just
once cut since returning at the Hong Kong Open last October.

It’s been tougher going for the rest with
Wade Ormsby on a run of five consecutive missed cuts and both Scott Hend and
Andrew Dodt coming off disastrous final rounds in France last week.

After a good start to the year Richard
Green has also hit a submerged log, missing each of his last three cuts.

However, with the different style of golf
required at Gullane this week the Australian contingent could be inspired to a
turnaround in form, Green in particular likely to be comfortable in the
conditions.