NORTH BERWICK, Scotland — One year ago, Chris Gotterup arrived at the Scottish Open the same way he arrived this week: not-so-fresh off a redeye from the American Midwest. He was ranked 158th in the world. Obviously, a lot has changed since.
You could say something similar for most of the field. You could say something similar for yourself. You were probably somewhere similar a year ago; a lot has changed since then, too. This time of the golf calendar seems to underline that message more than any other month. And shouldn’t it? We’re playing the national open of the sport’s founding country and following it up with the game’s oldest championship. If any month feels like golf’s birthday, it’s July, where we can celebrate the game’s core characteristics — penal bunkers, firm turf, sandy soil, wispy fescue, the ball in the wind and the ball on the ground. Our annual pilgrimage into this state of golf fittingly serves as a reminder of all that can change in 12 months.
Gotterup is the most obvious example, who says last year taught him that his game truly travels. Beating Rory McIlroy amid a crowd largely rooting against him was a launching point for three wins since. But there was a notable third player in that final group last year: Wyndham Clark. Has anyone’s 12 months of golf ridden more of a rollercoaster than his?
Jon Rahm could make a claim, given the upheaval of his employer, LIV Golf. His last 12 months haven’t been drastically different, but his next 12 will be. He’ll almost certainly be back here at the Scottish Open in 2027 — where, he says, “the game comes alive” — but where he plays before it, not even he knows.
There’s Brooks Koepka, who last year was in Europe but competing in a different country. This week, he’s a sponsor’s exemption from the DP World Tour half of this field, about as far away as one can get from “salaried LIV golfer.” Koepka spent part of Wednesday’s press conference reflecting on 2025 and how life away from golf intersects with life on the course.
“I feel like last year I wasn’t in the head space to actually play good golf,” Koepka said, “and now that everything is kind of cleared up and I’m in a better [place] — we all have that. It’s life, right?”
Right. Life is cyclical. So is pro golf. Koepka was once a Scottish Open mainstay, back in his twenties when he was competing on the DP World Tour and its feeder, the Challenge Tour. He called those days “some of the funnest times I’ve ever had playing golf,” flying economy with fellow pros, squeezing into taxis. He said the familiar nature of those times is one reason the European Ryder Cup team does so well. Perhaps unsurprisingly, European Tour’s production company has jumped into action with all its big hitters in the field, using this week to acquire the final interviews of its documentary on last year’s Ryder Cup.
McIlroy has been playing the Scottish Open for — gulp — 21 years now, the last three of which came at Renaissance Club. In 2023, he won in Scotland for the first time. In 2024, the Scottish marked his return from a gutting finish at the Pinehurst U.S. Open. In 2025, it seemed to be his first joyful press conference in months. Only he could tell you where his mind was during those weeks, but golf fans are observant enough to know how different he seemed. In 2026, maybe not so much has changed. He’s still holding the Masters champion’s green jacket, only this year he’s taking it fewer places, like to the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club. (That’s Wimbledon.)
“If you can’t wear it there,” he quipped, “where can you wear it?”
At a time when McIlroy’s annual schedule seems to be shrinking, this tournament isn’t going anywhere. On Wednesday, he called it the blueprint for national opens and the “perfect lead-in” to next week’s Open Championship. McIlroy stays in the same house on-site every year, right next to the Fleetwoods. While Argentina battled Egypt Tuesday night, Rory kicked around with Frankie Fleetwood in the backyard.
As for the author of this article, this is the fifth straight summer I’ve taken a United Airlines redeye from Chicago into Edinburgh, followed by the ScotRail train into nearby North Berwick. Two years ago, I hopped off that train and raced to Renaissance Club’s lovable neighbor — North Berwick’s West Links — only to find a shirtless caddie walking across the fairway. The sun was out, the sky was dotted with clouds, he had just taken a dip in the Firth of Forth. Life was good.
But only the luckiest pros and their caddies get to walk those North Berwick fairways each year. Last July, I walked along with Joel Dahmen and Geno Bonnalie during a sunset round on the West Links. They played a hearty match against each other before we popped into town for fish and chips. Neither of them knew it for sure, but that was the final week of their player-caddie partnership, a breakup that shocked the golf world. They remain close as ever, but the proof of what can change in a year is right there on the caddie registry this week. Bonnalie is here, looping on a one-week gig for Harris English (whose regular caddie is once again caught in visa issues). Dahmen is in Louisville playing the ISCO Championship.
“I miss that place,” he said of North Berwick, when reached via text. “Have a beer for me.”
Joel would rather be in Scotland than sweaty Kentucky, and thanks to a run of last-minute withdrawals from the field, he could have been. But he’s in hot pursuit of FedEx Cup points and figures he’d have a better chance domestically than across the pond.
“Week 2 of getting better at golf,” he texted. “Onward we [climbing emoji].”
