Sergio García arrives at Turnberry today keen to reacquaint himself with a course that brought him to his knees when he competed there as an amateur in 1997.

It is García’s lot at present to be considered a contender in every major championship, and particularly the Open, even though he finished poorly in the event at Royal Birkdale last year. He had been second, in 2007, and tied for fifth (in 2005 and 2006) in the three previous years.

García, 29, has had a couple of weeks off. He watched the tennis from Wimbledon and practised his golf. Then he watched more tennis and practised some more. He needs to. Apart from finishing tenth in last month’s US Open, his form this year has been disappointing for one who ended 2008 in such spectacular style, with play-off defeats in two events in the FedExCup series in the United States.

The Spaniard attributed this poor form to the end of his relationship with Morgan-Leigh Norman, Greg Norman’s daughter. “That hurt,” García told The Times at the end of May, when he admitted publicly that she had ended the relationship, not he. “It was probably the first time I have been really in love. It took me a while to get over it.”

The Open means a lot to García. It is the only major championship on the side of the Atlantic on which he was born. “I am feeling comfortable and I fancy my chances,” he said at a day organised by TaylorMade, one of his sponsors. “I like the course. I wouldn’t consider it one of the toughest links courses we play in an Open. The greens are fairly flat and they don’t have much to them. To do well you have to have luck with the weather.”

This is a truism about all Opens, but it was 12 years ago that it was brought home to García. He got the rough weather on both days of the strokeplay qualifying for the Amateur Championship and failed to reach the matchplay stages. “Nobody beat me,” he said, grinning. “I beat myself. I failed to qualify. The conditions were horrible. We were using woods to reach the par-three 6th hole.”

Even by the standards of his peers, García’s life is peripatetic. He has homes in three countries on two continents. Going to the factory of adidas, a sponsor, requires him to travel to Germany and going to Omega, another sponsor, takes him to Switzerland. His parents live in Spain. The family has the top floor of a chalet in Crans, Switzerland, where they usually spend Christmas, and García also has a home in Orlando, Florida.

Now he is back in Scotland, in the country in which he won the Amateur Championship at Muirfield in 1998. Could that be an omen for this week? He is a magnificent driver and his ability to hit his drives straight and long could be a huge advantage. The key to a low score at Turnberry is to keep the ball on the fairway. The rough is punishing in parts and the bunkers certainly exact a penalty.

García needs to putt well, though, better than he has for most of this year. If he does that, he will have the chance of a first victory in a major championship. To do it in Scotland, where he failed as an amateur in 1997 and where in the 1999 Open at Carnoustie he had rounds of 89 and 83, would make it all the sweeter.