Golfers have different ways of preparing for major championships. Some stay at home to rest, venturing out to practise at their local courses. Others seek the stimulus of competition.

For the past six years Tiger Woods and friends have come to Ireland to acclimatise to British Open conditions. This year, the friends have arrived again but Woods has stayed at home.

Reports say he is not expected to visit these shores and from America there is word that he has stayed at home in Orlando to practice at Isleworth, where he shot 59 in practice a few years ago.

He is also resting the knee on which he had surgery during the off-season and which delayed his start on the US Tour this season. And perhaps his five-stroke triumph at the Western Open on Sunday, his fourth victory of the year, persuaded him that he needed no special preparations for Royal St George's next week.

His mates, Mark O'Meara and Scott McCarron, may bump into Padraig Harrington whilst here. Harrington has opted to stay at home to work on the putting problems that saw him finish joint 61st at the European Open last week.

All of which leaves the Scottish Open at the mercy of a cast that includes Ernie Els, Phil Mickelson, John Daly and leading Europeans such as Colin Montgomerie, Darren Clarke and Jose Maria Olazabal.

Mickelson, who has slipped to eighth in the world rankings, has come in search of what he termed "competitive sharpness" ahead of the Open at Sandwich. His justification is that he last played the Scottish event in 2000 and finished equal seventh before going on to his best Open finish, joint 11th at St Andrews the following week. "So I decided to follow that path again. I find that playing the week before a major prepares me better for it," he said.

Els, who will be defending his Open title at Royal St George's, agrees that playing a course like Loch Lomond may not be the perfect preparation for a links course. "But any kind of competitive golf before next week - if you play well on a tough golf course like this - will definitely help you. It will help the nerves."

Els has an Open title to his name but Mickelson does not and neither does Montgomerie. And the Scot's form, with missed cuts in successive European Tour events last month, does not suggest that, at 40, he is about to break through the way O'Meara did when he won the Masters and the Open at the age of 41 in 1998.

Montgomerie remains optimistic although he is trying not to look beyond the Scottish Open, which he believes he can win. "It has been a disappointing year, with only three top 10s, but now I feel it is coming back," he said. "I feel comfortable over the ball, comfortable with my putting and I honestly feel I can win now."