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The Scottish Open had the brilliant idea to move their venue from the venerable, albeit American-style course at Loch Lomond to a more links-style course at Castle Stuart in the attempt to bring in high profile names in preparation for the British Open.

Mission accomplished it would seem with names like Phil Mickelson, Padraig Harrington, Lee Westwood, Ernie Els, Edoardo Molinari, Martin Laird, Colin Montgomerie, Luke Donald, Graeme McDowell, Angel Cabrera, Matt Kuchar, Gary Woodland and Justin Rose taking part in the event acting as a warm up for this week’s British Open at Royal St. George’s.

Mickelson even went so far as to predict the winner of the British Open would be in the field at the Scottish Open, beings that the new links layout near Inverness is as good as a preparatory track as any in the world.

“I expect the winner of next week’s British Open will be in the field this week. I think it is such an advantage to play, get over here first of all and get acclimated to the time,” Lefty said. “Second, play links golf the week before on such a great course as this, I think it will help anybody in this field to compete and play well next week.”

Enter Luke Donald, world No. 1.

Although a catastrophic rainfall wiped out play entirely on Saturday, turning the Open tune-up into a 54-hole sprint, the reigning world No. 1 player made no mistake about his intentions to win his first major the following week.

Shooting a nine-under 63 on Sunday to win by four strokes over Fredrik Andersson Hed gave Donald his third win of the season and solidified him as the preemptive favorite in Sandwich this week. While the world drools over new darling Rory McIlroy, Donald has quietly gone about his business.

The fact of the matter remains that as impressive as McIlroy was in the US Open, he is still 22 and going through the learning process of winning. Many, myself included, believe McIlroy to be the dominant golfer of the future, but that doesn’t mean he will run off 10 straight major championships. Remember, Donald has won three times this year; McIlroy has won three times in his entire career.

Add his recent play in 2011 with his pedigree in recent Open Championships including T-5 and T-11 finishes the past two years, Donald has to be up there with McIlroy as the favorite to take home the Claret Jug.

Could a rivalry be blossoming between McIlroy and Donald? Possibly. At age 33, Donald is 11 years McIlroy’s elder, a similar age gap between Jack Nicklaus and Arnold Palmer.

However, with Donald’s recent form and the fact that he has actually been playing golf since the US Open, it would seem only logical to believe him to be the man to beat this week.

Whether or not he can live up the hype is something he and McIlroy both have in common. Luckily for us, we can watch these two great players duke it out beginning Thursday morning.