HARRINGTON'S GLOWING PRAISE FOR CASTLE STUART LINKS

FROM THE SPORT.SCOTSMAN.COM WEBSITE 
By Martin Dempster at Castle Stuart
AS the man who had made the most noise about wanting to see the Barclays Scottish Open back on a links course, Padraig Harrington's views on the choice of Castle Stuart as the event's new home were always going to be interesting.
And, though the three-time major winner may prattle on a bit during his press conferences, the glowing praise heaped by him yesterday on the Inverness venue will certainly have been music to the ears of many.
"We were not sure what to expect coming up here," he admitted ahead of the £3 million event teeing off tomorrow in the Highlands. "I heard it was good. But it is way above expectations. Somebody said it was the best new-built links course out there and you would have to think it's right up there in that category.
"There are so many ways to play the same holes. (Having also been designed by Gil Hanse and Mark Parsinen] Kingsbarns is the forerunner to this and we enjoy playing there, but for me they seem to have taken the slope out of the greens here and put it outside the green.

"If you miss the green and your ball gets stuck behind a mound and runs off 20 yards, that's punishment for missing the green. But if you hit it on the green here, the greens are putting beautifully and you've got a good birdie chance.

"There's a great variety of greens out there and what I like about the outside of the green structures is that they spill the ball nicely and you're left with a lot of options, whether to putt it, chip it, chip and run it or play a lob shot.

"I'm all against rough around the greens because I think it nullifies the skill and it plays into the hands of bad chippers. You also don't want to see somebody miss the green and be able to use a putter every time. But, due to the little sliced banks and things like that here, it really brings the skill back into the game."

Harrington last played in the Scottish Open in 1999, having decided to stay away from Loch Lomond, the event's home for 15 years, because hitting off lush parkland turf wasn't what he was looking for the week before The Open Championship.

Prior to winning the world's oldest major in both 2007 and 2008, he headed instead for The European Club in County Wicklow to play in the Irish PGA Championship, even though it carried a significantly lower purse than the one on offer in the home of golf.

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