Bjorn leads an all-star cast

THOMAS BJORN heads a powerful European invasion this week in the Dunhill links championship at St Andrews.

The talented Dane, a seven times winner on the European Tour and currently No 20 in the world, will be joined on the Old Course by a host of big names chasing a share of the €4.33million prize fund.

Padraig Harrington returns to defend the title he won in 2002 along with two-time US Masters champion Jose Maria Olazabal.

All five European winners on the European Tour this year will take part this week with Sweden's Frederik Jacobsen going for a seasonal hat-trick after wins in the Omega Hong Kong Open and the Algarve Portuguese Open.

Ignacio Garrido will hope to add to his Volvo PGA Championship win at

Wentworth in May while Holland's Robert-Jan Derksen (Dubai Desert Classic), Sweden's Mathias Gronberg (Italian Open) and Denmark's Soren Kjeldsen (Diageo Championship) will hope to be in contention come Sunday afternoon.

Paul Lawrie, Nick Faldo, Darren Clarke and Colin Montgomerie, as well as world number two Ernie Els, US PGA champion Shaun Micheel playing in his first European event, and Vijay Singh, now leading money winner on the US Tour, help give the tournament one of the strongest line-ups on the European Tour this year.

Young Australian star Adam Scott comes to the tournament on the back of some blistering form on both sides of the Atlantic.

A win at the Scandinavian Masters at the beginning of August was followed by his maiden US Tour win at the Deutsche Bank Championship earlier this month - pushing him up to 19th in the world rankings.

Scott will try to make it three in quick succession at the upcoming links event and claim the lions' share of the prize fund.

Among the golfing enthusiasts joining the regular tour stars in the pro-am event are Samuel L Jackson, Ian Botham, Zinzan Brooke, Bobby Charlton and Johan Cruyff.