Chris Gotterup was still catching up on his phone notifications when he landed in Scotland — barely pausing after stepping off the podium at the John Deere Classic on Sunday to collect his latest trophy.
The 26-year-old made a quick trip home to pack, then jumped on a plane headed back across the Atlantic to defend his title at the Scottish Open at Renaissance Club. It’s a whirlwind schedule that has left him little time to savor the moment.
“Getting straight back to the house, packing up and getting on a plane to Scotland, I didn’t really have time to catch up on all my stuff on my phone,” Gotterup said Tuesday in Scotland. “Yeah, over the next couple weeks when I have some time, I’ll get through it all. It’s weird, the last couple times — like every time I’ve won, I feel like I’ve been in a rush to get to like my next spot. So hopefully sometime I can win one and have a week off afterwards.”
Gotterup’s rise has been swift. His victory at the 2025 Scottish Open in North Berwick — a 15-under performance that topped Northern Ireland’s Rory McIlroy — is widely considered the most significant of his five career wins. That win earned him a spot at the Open Championship, where he made an immediate impression by tying for third place in his debut.
Now ranked No. 7 in the Official World Golf Ranking, Gotterup enters this week’s tournament as one of the favorites rather than a long shot.
On Thursday, he’ll tee off at 3:28 a.m. ET from the 10th hole alongside McIlroy, who won the Scottish Open in 2023, and Scotsman Robert McIntyre, the 2024 champion — a grouping that represents the last three tournament winners.
“There will be a bunch of people out there I would assume. Hopefully I feel a few more fans rooting for me than against me than last time. It will be fun,” Gotterup said Tuesday. “Obviously those two are beloved here, and I’m excited for the opportunity. It’s been nice to kind of get in the mix a little bit with these big groups and just get more comfortable in that scenario. Yeah, I think that’s kind of what you want when you are playing out here. You want to be in the big groups, and yeah, I’ll be looking forward to that on Thursday.”
Gotterup, who played collegiate golf at the University of Oklahoma — as did Norway’s Viktor Hovland — credits that experience with teaching him how to hit a low, penetrating tee shot in the wind and how to use the elements to his advantage on links-style courses.
Renaissance Club has undergone some reconfiguration since his victory last year, though Gotterup says the changes aren’t dramatic. The course’s hole sequence has been reshuffled — only the 8th, 9th, 17th, and 18th holes remain in the same order as 2025. What was formerly holes 1 through 7 now plays as holes 10 through 16, and vice versa. The adjustment was made largely to improve spectator viewing around the par-3 15th hole, which now features stadium-style seating.
“I don’t think it will change how you play the holes. More the flow is a little different of the course,” Gotterup said. “But at the end of the day, I don’t think it changes much other than you’ve just got to remember what hole you’re on. All of our notes are all mixed up, though.”
Despite not sleeping much on the flight over, Gotterup — who turns 27 in less than two weeks — says he hasn’t felt the physical strain of playing four consecutive weeks heading into this event.
He acknowledged there have been moments where the rapid rise has felt surreal, but says his experience competing in high-profile groupings last year at this very tournament helped prepare him for the pressure he now faces regularly.
“I don’t know about over my skis but definitely been moments where I’m like, ‘Wow, this is kind of crazy,’” he said. “But at the end of the day, you kind of take that. It’s there and you either stand up to it or … I think that’s why this tournament last year was so big to me. I played in groups and played well and kind of faded away on the weekends but without that experience, I don’t think I would have been able to stand up on the tee on Sunday and play well.”
His goal heading into this week is simple: return home with another trophy — or two.
