American owner calls for toughest tests in Scottish Opens at Renaissance Club

Rory McIlroy criticised course set up for men’s event last year

The Renaissance Club in East Lothian will host a Scottish Open double, starting this week with the Aberdeen Standard Investments Ladies Open. Picture: Getty.

Low scoring in last year’s men’s event, which was played in benign conditions on rain-softened fairways and greens, led Rory McIlroy to single it out when he claimed course set-ups on the European Tour were not “hard enough”.

The Rolex Series tournament is heading back to The Renaissance Club in early October but, before then, the Ladies Scottish Open takes place there again this week.

“I would say the course set-up is really important,” said Jerry Sarvadi, the venue’s CEO, having moved from Florida to oversee its running on behalf of his five brothers.“I personally did not pay enough attention to course set-up last year because, in both events, they played the course at much less than it has the capability to be as far as distance is concerned.

“This year, I’ve said to the powers that be on both the European Tour and LPGA/LET: ‘play the course’. I get that they want to see birdies and they want people to play well but, at the same time, people want a challenging but fair golf course and we’ve got the capacity to do that.

“All they have to do is use it. Don’t move the tees to where you are playing under 6,000 yards. These women are hitting the ball 250-260. Play the golf course how it is meant to be played, don’t try to make it something it’s not. That’s the message that I’m sending to them this year.”

Austrian Bernd Wiesberger posted a 22-under total in winning the men’s event last year while Korea’s Mi Jung Hur was 20 under in claiming the ladies’ title. Wiesberger shot a 61 and 
Hur 62.

“The Friday morning for the women’s event last year was just brutal,” recalled Sarvadi, inset. The morning starters were something like 340 over par and the afternoon starters were 71 under. If you had a morning tee time on the Friday, you were toast.

“However, we’ve never had four days in a row ever in the entire time I’ve been here for 18 years that didn’t have any kind of wind for four straight days, as was the case for the men’s event. It’s the only time it has ever happened. I mean that’s just unbelievable.

“Because of the Covid restrictions on maintainance, we didn’t do any of our normal rough maintainance that we normally do.

“We’ve cut some of it, but the rough is more difficult this year. And, if it blows, it will be harder. But the forecast for this week is relatively mild with rain on most days and the wind is only supposed to be a maximum of 13mph.”