GWD_MAY_16

AUGUST
2016
A
HAS ANYONE SEEN
ADAM?
Adam Scott’s 2013 Masters win was expected to pave the way to a Hall of Fame career,
but he’s failed to add to his tally since. Ben Everill asks if the Australian can still fulfill
that potential or if he’s already been left behind by a new breed of champions.
Ask any Australian golf fan, or
sports fan for that matter, about
the passionate ‘C’mon Aussie’
scream from Adam Scott on the
18th green at Augusta National
in 2013 and they get goose bumps. The pain
of a nation washed away in one euphoric
primal outburst as the man long touted as
‘the next Greg Norman’ paved his way
towards becoming the first Green Jacket
winner of a proud nation after so many near
misses. It was seen as not only the end of the
heartache at Augusta, it was the heralding
of a new age. The dominance of Scott was
finally going to surface after a decade of
being heaped into the ‘best guys not to win
majors’ category. The publicists’ dream with
a sublime swing was ready to take his place
where he belonged at the top. Even Norman
himself anointed Scott as the man to become
the greatest Australian major winner of alltime,
with Peter Thomson’s five Open
Championships a target he saw falling. Fast-
forward nearly three years and Scott enters the
2016 major season out of the loop with the
young guns Jordan Spieth, Rory McIlroy,
Rickie Fowler and
compatriot Jason
Day taking centre
stage. While the now
35 year old did make
his way to the summit of
golf in terms of world
rankings for a brief stint in
2014, his major tally remains at
Mine at last: Scott’s relief was
palpable as he celebrated his
long-awaited first major.
one. In the 11 majors since winning, Scott was
inside the top 15 eight times with half of
those top five finishes… but no more trophies.
Conceivably he could have won four
consecutive Open Championships only to see
all of them slip on the back nine on Sunday.
Now this is a record plenty of us would
happily take to the bank, but for Scott, it
simply is just not good enough. Failure is a
tough word in the circumstance, but given his
limited schedule and entire training regime
over the last six years has been geared to the
majors, the return on his investment is far
from ideal.
“I don’t feel like I am winning enough for
the amount of good play I have had over the
last two seasons,” Scott said amid the drought.
“But motivation gets higher through the
disappointment, that’s how it works. I want to
win more.
“I didn’t change my system to just win one.
I have had big dreams my whole life and
sometimes it just takes a while to get there.
I don’t think winning multiple majors is
outside the realms of possibility. It will be up
to me. How much do I want it, how hard am
I prepared to work?”
Having not won
anywhere since 2014
the big question is
now becoming why.
What has stopped the
dominance he looked set to
promise? And has the window
closed now the anchored putting
September May 2014 2016 Golf World
55