Hampshire golf fans will be hoping for a fast start from British Amateur Champion Scott Gregory when the US Open gets under way at Erin Hills today (Thursday), writes Andrew Griffin.

Last July, the Corhampton ace stormed to four-under after 10 to top the leaderboard as one of the early starters at The Open Championship, at Royal Troon.

Although he went on to miss the cut in Scotland on his debut in a Major, and also failed to make the weekend on his bow in the Masters, at Augusta, he hopes a two-week preparation for Erin Hills is about to pay off when he tees it up alongside US winners Martin Laird and Russell Knox, who are both Scots living in the States after attending US colleges on golf scholarships.

Normally when a regular tour event is played at a new venue, it favours the rookies and less experienced golfers as there is less “course form” and knowledge of the lines to hit and how putts run on the greens, gained in previous visits.

The 2015 BMW PGA champion at Wentworth Byeong-Hun An played at Erin Hills six years ago in a field that also included 2015 US Amateur champion Bryson DeChambeau, as well as Harris English, Argentina’s Emiliano Grillo, Russell Henley, China’s Cheng-Tsung Pan, Peter Uihlein and Justin Thomas, who has already won three times on tour this year.

The last of that US Amateur field playing this week was a certain Jordan Spieth, who won his maiden US Open at Chambers Bay two years ago, after his first Masters win two months earlier.

Spieth gave plenty of advice to Scott when they met on the practice green at Troon last July, including using his Playstation and Youtube to get to know how to play Augusta before he set a single foot down Magnolia Lane.

And the former World No. 1 he had this to say about the challenge ahead this week.

Spieth said: “When you tee it up on Thursday of the US Open, you’ve got to stand there on that tee box and say, I’m hitting it into this area - this is what I’m doing to attack this hole, instead of - there’s trouble left, as long as you miss it right we can make par.

“That’s where you get into trouble. To win a US Open you need to be a very, very confident player."

With Scott’s avowed intention to make the cut this week in Wisconsin, he is sure to have taken note.

He tees off at 2.13pm today (UK time) and 7.58pm on Friday.