Will Zalatoris is relishing the challenge of a fortnight of links golf as he makes his professional debut on European soil at the 2021 abrdn Scottish Open.
The American represented his country in the Arnold Palmer Cup at Formby Golf Club in England in 2016 and 12 months later made his European Tour debut as an amateur at the Porsche European Open.
In his seven European appearances since as a professional, he has sealed three top tens in Major Championships and he once again finds himself on the big stage playing in the Rolex Series at The Renaissance Club.
Sitting seventh on the Race to Dubai Rankings in Partnership with Rolex, two good results over the next two weeks here in Scotland and at The Open Championship could put him right in the mix to be crowned Europe's Number One, and Zalatoris cannot wait to play some links golf.
"It's kind of similar to actually how we play in the winter time back home," he said. "Texas is very dry and so we get a lot of wind, fog.
"Gets a little firm. Got to keep it on the ground, keep it underneath the wind. So I've kind of grown up on it... it's not exactly links golf.
The few amount of links courses we have in the States, I know how to play them
"The few amount of links courses we have in the States, I know how to play them.
"It's completely different. Week-in, week-out on the PGA Tour we try to hit it as high as we can and out here we're trying to keep it as low as we can.
"I had a little bit of a rough month with my game so I'm kind of trying to kick everything back into gear.
"Absolutely prepping for next week, just to get back on links because it's so different from what we play week-in, week-out back home.
"On top of that, too, playing against the best players in the world - if that doesn't get you excited, I don't know what does."
Justin Thomas is familiar with links golf having finished in the top ten here in 2019 and played at four Open Championships, and he was delighted to be back in Scotland.
"A lot of great memories," he said. "I unfortunately haven't really had any good results at any tournaments. I played pretty well here a couple of years ago.
"But honestly one of the most fond memories I had was two years ago when we came in for the Scottish: myself, my dad and Kevin Kisner. We went out to North Berwick and played and that was really fun.
"You don't often, basically never, would we be going to a golf tournament in the States and get in a day early and want to go play golf somewhere. But being over here, having the opportunity to play a course that obviously none of us would play unless we were here - and we needed to stay awake, it was our first day, so we knew if we laid down on the couch, we were toast.
"It was fun. We took some trolleys and went out and played 18 holes and went in the pub and had a couple of pints after and just really enjoyed the whole experience."
