New PGA Tour format: Rory McIlroy says Scottish Open must be protected

“We have to be careful with it because then it loses the fabric of what these Opens are,” said McIlroy, a two-time Masters champion.

“You can’t call yourself a national open anymore if it’s a closed tournament and there’s a certain number of guys.

“These events need to be treated differently than what’s going to happen in the Travelers Championship or the RBC Heritage or the Championship Series.”

From 2022 the Scottish Open is co-sanctioned by the PGA and the DP World Tour.

This means that members of a tour can play if they are ranked high enough to qualify for the 156-man field.

The plan approved by PGA Tour CEO Brian Rollapp is to feature a field of around 120 players competing for a prize fund of at least $20m (£15m) for the championship level.

The Scottish Open purse is worth £6.7m, but MacIntyre said: “I personally think the Scottish Open is going to be a whole lot better.

“I don’t see it as a $20m event. I see it as a Rolex Series/European Tour event. To have a $20m event in Scotland would be a bit outrageous given the world we live in today. It’s not like America.”

Many of the leading Americans are happy to play in the Scottish Open to fine tune their games on the seaside links ahead of The Open next week.

“It needs to be worked into the new schedule,” said world number one and reigning Open champion Scotty Scheffler.

“It’s important that we keep it in the Championship Series because you get a lot of people who come here and play (The Open) the week before.”

Scheffler said it was “hard to say” whether the field should include DP World Tour players under the new set-up.

“It’s so hard to rank golfers that they’re not playing together all the time,” said the 30-year-old American.

“Having similar guys playing against each other on great golf courses week in and week out is the best way to set up our schedule.

“It would be really nice to have this tournament fit that mold.”