The tournament marks the start of the "UK Swing," a series of six events played in England and Wales over the next six weeks devised primarily for ease of travel for players amid the coronavirus pandemic.

Starting this week at Close House Golf Course near Newcastle, the venues are all within a three-hour drive of one another, scrapping the need for air travel to which players have become accustomed on the increasingly global European Tour.

Players and caddies have been tested on arrival, will have to check for symptoms and take a temperature test daily, and then will have an antigen test before stepping on the first tee.

There will be no spectators at the course, with fewer than 500 people on site at the venue.

Some of the players will be used to this new norm from having competed at the Austrian Open and the Euram Bank Open – events counting toward the European Tour and the Challenge Tour – over the last two weeks.

RIGHT: Tournament host Lee Westwood is the highest-ranked player in the field at Close House. PHOTO: Andrew Redington/Getty Images

No players in the top 100 in the world were in Austria, where there was a total prize fund of US$575,000 (AU$800,000).

Despite the "UK Swing" kicking off the full return of the European Tour, only one player in the world's top 50 – former World No.1 Lee Westwood, now ranked 34th – will be teeing up at Close House.

That's because most of Europe's elite are in the United States ahead of a World Golf Championship in Tennessee, where the prize fund of US$10.5 million (AU$14.8 million) is around seven-times that of the British Masters, and then the US PGA Championship in San Francisco starting August 6.

Also inside the bubble this week will be Miguel Angel Jimenez, who will make his 706th appearance on the European Tour – tying the record of Sam Torrance.

Jimenez led the Austrian Open after a seven-under 65 in the second round but faded to an eighth-place finish.