(Reuters) – Ten years after claiming Australia’s first Masters win, Adam Scott hopes those golden memories can help deliver another for the country at Augusta this week.
Scott’s thrilling 2013 triumph in a playoff against Angel Cabrera slotted in the last piece of the major jigsaw that had proved elusive for Greg Norman and other top Australian golfers.
A huge TV audience tuned in on a workday morning to watch, rejoicing in living rooms as Scott soaked up tributes from the prime minister down.
A decade later, Scott’s winning putt remains a staple of “greatest sporting moment” packages in Australia and the defining moment of a career that has never again scaled such heights.
The former world number one had hoped for more, setting himself a goal of completing a sweep of the majors, but Scott has not been able to add a second, let alone a third or fourth.
At 42, time is by no means running out for Scott – as Phil Mickelson showed when he won the 2021 PGA Championship at the record age of 50.
But neither is it on his side.
Since the turn of the millennium, only five other golfers apart from Mickelson have won a major in their forties.
Scott says he still has the game to join them if it all comes together at the right time.
“It’s always good vibes coming back here,” he told reporters on Tuesday.
“It’s amazing in some ways it’s been 10 years but in other ways I guess I feel really good about where I’ve managed to keep myself over these 10 years, at least physically very healthy and ready to go again.
“I feel like if I can put myself in a good position I can lean on those memories of getting it done 10 years ago.”
Scott remains revered in Australian golf but the spotlight has fallen on younger men like British Open champion Cameron Smith, who walked away from the PGA Tour to join the breakaway LIV Series for an enormous payday.
Scott has remained wedded to the U.S. Tour and was elected by his peers to chair its Player Advisory Council.
Players on both sides have fired pot-shots at the rival tours but Scott and Smith remain firm friends and played a practice round together at Augusta.
“None of this has had any effect on our relationship at all,” he said.
“We often play practice rounds at majors and I was glad to have a hit with him.”
(Reporting by Ian Ransom in Melbourne; Editing by Peter Rutherford)
