Luke Donald carded a final round score of 63 to clinch the Scottish Open title at the rain hit Castle Stuart course but don’t expect to see anything like this level of scoring when the worlds best golfers head to the south of England to tackle Royal St Georges in Kent.

The course will be set up in order to make sure low scoring will be hard to obtain, just like every year at The Open Championship. Tough pin positions, difficult to judge greens and firm fairways will be the order of the day.

The last time The Open was held at Royal St Georges in 2003, Ben Curtis an unheralded American won The Claret Jug with a score of one under, which also meant he was the only player under par after four days of enthralling golf.

Thomas Bjorn, the experienced Dane looked to be on his way to winning his first major but blew it at the 16^th when he failed to get out of a bunker. Don’t expect things to be much different this time in terms of players struggling though there is little chance of Curtis and Bjorn being the two main challengers again this time.

The favourite is undoubtedly Northern Irishman, Rory McIlroy after his stunning victory 3 weeks ago at the US Open, where he won by 8 shots over young Australian Jason Day. Over the four days at Congressional, McIlroy tore up the course with a style of play not seen since Tiger Woods was in his prime. Nobody could get close to him and whilst the end result was very much a formality, as a golf fan it was wonderful to watch.

No one knows what the future holds for McIlroy, but he could very well gain his second Major this week. With Tiger Woods out injured, he will be the star attraction for spectators and it will be interesting to see how he can cope with that. Already this year, the 22 year-old has shown how he can and can’t cope with the pressure. At the Masters, he played brilliantly for three rounds but then on the back 9 on the Sunday lost control of his swing, eventually shooting an 80 and finishing in a tie for 15^th. At the US Open it was a different story, as he opened up with a birdie in the final round and never looked like choking again.

McIlroy has performed well in past Opens. He finished as the leading amateur in 2007, and also finished tied 3^rd last year atSt Andrews which included a record breaking 63 in the first round. I expect him to be challenging come a week on Sunday.

Europeans currently hold the top 4 positions in the World Rankings and it wouldn’t surprise me if the other three along with fourth ranked McIlroy were in contention for their first Open Championship.

Both Luke Donald and Lee Westwood have a great game for links golf and both have been in good form, with Donald having an incredible run of 11 top ten finishes in a row and Westwood only narrowly losing out to him at the PGA Championship at Wentworth in May.

The other European I refer to is German Martin Kaymer, the world number three.  Whilst Kaymer has been in poor form recently, I still rank him as the best golfer in the world along with McIlroy when he hits top form and I have a feeling he will be chomping at the bit to shut up some of his critics in the media.

And what of the defending champion Louis Oosthuizen? Whilst he hasn’t exactly set the world on fire after his great victory atSt Andrewslast year, I would never rule out someone who knows what it takes to win an Open Championship. And South Africans seem to be doing pretty well in Majors recently with Charl Schwartzel taking home the Green Jacket fromAugustain April.

Whilst I would never rule out experienced golfers such as Ernie Els, Phil Mickelson, Padraig Harrington and even the rejuvenated Sergio Garcia from being in contention come the final day, there has been a trend of first time Major winners over the last two years in golf, with Mickelson’s 2010 Masters being the one exception out of the last twelve.

That might leave the door open for the talented Australian Jason Day, already a runner up in the two Majors this year so far or one of the young Americans such as Matt Kuchar, Nick Watney or Hunter Mahan to win their first Major.

Whatever happens I am sure we are in for four thrilling days of top quality golf.