"Eyebrows will be raised if the winning score at the Scottish Open is higher than that at the Open Championship"

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Because Royal Aberdeen is short by modern standards it has remained relatively tight since the 2012 photos I posted, which isn't necessary, especially when the forecast calls for rain and three different wind directions during Scottish Open play.

Ewan Murray with the player takes on whether such a severe test will defeat the purpose of the Scottish serving as a firm-but-sane warm-up to The Open, as Castle Stuart did the last two years.

Murray writes for The Guardian:

A strong field are looking in part to prepare for a tilt at the Claret Jug at Royal Liverpool. They are unlikely to do so the easy way. “There’s two schools of thought,” Justin Rose said. “I think that’s why I thought Castle Stuart was a great course for us; because it was links golf and it was pretty authentic but it wasn’t too demanding and too tough. So you weren’t going to get destroyed the week before an Open Championship. This course is the opposite to that. Hoylake might seem a gentle test compared to maybe what we face here, depending on the weather.”

Bob Harig at ESPN.com on defending champ Phil Mickelson's press conference and plans going in for the event, where he played Trump International earlier in the week. Mickelson is embracing the forecast and even the severity of the setup.

And his attitude appears to be: Bring it on.

"I'm looking forward to it; tomorrow is supposed to be terrible weather," Mickelson said Wednesday at Royal Aberdeen. "I hope it is, because I would love to be able to get out in that stuff and play in that stuff that I never get a chance to back home, and have actually started to play pretty well in over the years. It's fun, and it's a great opportunity."

A whopping eight hours of Golf Channel coverage runs from 5:30-1:30 ET Thursday and Friday, with Golf Channel and NBC splitting the weekend.