2022 Scottish Open – The Renaissance Club Course Preview

Sitting adjacent to Muirfield on 300 acres along the famous golfing coastline off the Firth of Forth in North Berwick, Scotland is The Renaissance Club. Completed in 2008 by famed architect Tom Doak, it was designed from the swath of an ancient pine forest. With only four holes by the ocean, undulating terrain, thick rough off the fairway and numerous wooded areas, The Renaissance Club is not a traditional links setup. It does have links qualities with firm turf, and deep pot bunkers, and its greens encourage the use of the ground game.

Over the past decade, the club has become a mainstay in the Scottish golfing scene, having hosted three other Scottish Opens along with professional women’s and senior events. This year’s Scottish Open makes its debut as a co-sanctioned event between the PGA Tour and DP World Tour. With many of the PGA players typically viewing this as a warm-up event for The Open Championship, each of the past six winners, and 22 of the past 24 have been a European Tour regular.

Other than being on the Scottish coast and the “linksy” aesthetics that are part of The Renaissance Club, this event hasn’t proven to be the most challenging of Open Championship warm-ups. With calmer winds in play, the tournaments here in 2019 and 2021 averaged 1.87 strokes under par.

The Field

With 14 of the top 15 players in the world making the trip to North Berwick, the field for this year’s Scottish Open will be one of the strongest non-major events ever. The number of PGA Tour players and DP World Tour players is evenly split with 75 players in attendance from each. Motivation for many will be high as three spots in the Open Championship are up for grabs to the top three finishers who have not already qualified provided they finish in the top 10 at Renaissance.

Other than Rory McIlroy and the suspended LIV golfers, every other upper-tier golfer will play. The headliners include world number one Scottie Scheffler, reigning FedExCup champion Patrick Cantlay, major winners Justin Thomas and Matt Fitzpatrick and other standouts such as Jon Rahm, Xander Schauffele, Cameron Smith, Sam Burns and Hideki Matsuyama. Also returning is last years winner, Min Woo Lee, who defeated Fitzpatrick and Thomas Detry in a three-way playoff.

Course History

Famed American architect Tom Doak had always embraced “Old Country” course designs. And in 2005, he finally received an offer to build a Scottish course which would be named The Renaissance Club. A group of American investors obtained a 99-year lease from the Duke of Hamilton on a 300-acre portion of the Archerfield Estate on the East Lothian coastline where they wanted Doak to create a private course worthy of major championships.

One of the main reasons Doak was hired to create a world-class course was because of his renowned ability to leave nature undisturbed. In that regard, Doak did not disappoint as he was able to showcase the natural features of the Archerfield tract. Speaking on the land, Doak remarked, “It was very different from other properties in the area because of the trees and lack of dunes, but as well as being sandy, the land has beautiful subtle movement.”

When three new holes along the coastline were added in 2013, it gave the course an entirely new feel. The holes from 9-11 gave the course a connection to the coastline for the very first time. Holes 9 and 11 are scenic par-3s while the par-4 10th hole has a narrow fairway with a sloped green that sits right next to the edge of the cliffs looking down on the Firth of Forth.

The Course

Due to potential windy conditions, The Renaissance Club was built with extreme versatility in tee placements and can play as short as 5,400 yards out to its Scottish Open length of 7,237 yards. While it was a par-71 course in previous editions, this year it is a par-70 course with a unique mixture of ten par-4s, five par-3s and three par-5s. Overall, it is a hybrid of parkland, heathland and links-style courses. The layout was carved through a forest of evergreens and has an undulating sand-based terrain that includes ancient rock walls, ocean cliffs and forested woodlands.

While the architecture may be bland overall, the routing is superb moving from heathland to heavily treed areas to coastal dunes and back to the forest and heath. The holes also alternate in facing different directions which provides for a variety of wind conditions on different holes.