Padraig Harrington blog: Scottish Open Review

Padraig Harrington plays a shot at the Aberdeen Asset Management Scottish Open .

It was a reasonable week at the Scottish Open - in terms of the week itself I was disappointed with my overall performance, but in terms of getting ready for the Open I am happy. I left a lot of shots behind me during the course of the week, had multiple three putts and missed a few short ones too.

I had my chances to get further up the leaderboard but wasn't able to take them. The good thing in terms of my week was that my best round came in my final round and as the week went on I was getting better.

Royal Aberdeen played really well, even better than I thought it would after my practice round on Monday. Over the four tournament days we got a great mix of weather and wind conditions. The course played toughest on the second day when the back nine played into the wind, whilst the par fours coming home played long and tough.

I threw away a good day on Friday by bogeying the last two holes to finish on one over par. Had I managed to get in with two pars on the last two holes then I would have been in the top 15 instead of a tie for 50th or so. It really is a fine line out here.

The wind blew the same direction on Saturday but they moved a few of the tee boxes up on the back nine to make it more playable and so the scoring was much better. The only problem we had was the fog that came in and sat there for a while. My group kept playing as we felt it was better to keep going as there wasn't much wind, but a lot of groups stopped and waited for it to clear.

My final round of four under was a nice round to close out on but it could so easily have been better. I had a double bogey and a bogey in it and played in the worst conditions. For my first six holes it was windy and wet and then for most of my back nine it was into the wind. Soon after we finished the wind changed direction. The joys of links golf!

I would have liked to have got myself more into the tournament but having not done that I was happy to have finished the week with my best score. I feel much more prepared for The Open after playing in Scotland - it was great to be back playing links golf and hitting different types of shots, but no matter how much you have played it over the years you really need to get a few rounds under your belt before The Open.

I struggled a little bit during the week from the tee but by the end of it I was fine, I also struggled with my putting particularly in the first two rounds. However I got to grips with it and my final round was probably my best putting round I have had in a long time.

All in all, I am heading to Hoylake feeling good about my game. I saw a lot of good things during the week and the areas I was feeling good about improved. I would have liked to be more involved in the business end of the tournament but there is nothing I can do about that now.

Talk soon,
Padraig.