MOST golfers try to stay away from the water, but Adam Scott is never happier than when he is taking a dip — once he has packed away his clubs for the day.
Like all good Australians, Scott is a born surfer — although he nearly pushed it too far in 2004 when he got caught in a swell off Hawaii, having taken his board out after the third round of the Mercedes Championship.
He also loves swimming on the Great Barrier Reef or tearing around on his jet ski, but it is on dry land that he excels as a sportsman.
Scott may not yet have won the major championship that everyone expects but he is one of the brightest young players in the game and it can only be a matter of time — and of Tiger Woods, who like Scott was coached by Butch Harmon, getting an injury.
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Scott was the World Junior Champion in 1997 and had consecutive top ten finishes on the European Tour as an amateur, but his reputation as a prodigy is built on a lie, albeit a small one. “There are pictures of me holding a golf club at age two, but I didn’t actually start playing until I was six,” Scott said.
His father, Phil, a professional, taught him the game and after high school he went on a golf scholarship to the University of Nevada but dropped out after a year.
Scott soon made his mark away from the classroom, however. By the end of 2001, he was in the world’s top 50, which earned him an invitation to the 2002 Masters, aged 21. Only Woods and Jack Nicklaus have had as high a finish as his ninth place at such a young age.
He achieved the same position at the 2004 US PGA and won the Players Championship, the unofficial fifth major, that year too. This season he has gone even better, recording his best finishes in major championships with an eighth place at the Open, followed by third at the US PGA.
Scott recalls skipping school as a six-year-old to watch Greg Norman have victory snatched from him by Larry Mize at the 1987 Masters. There are many Australian young guns competing for the title of the new Norman and one could argue that Geoff Ogilvy, by winning this year’s US Open, has beaten them all to it. But don’t bet against Scott, who employs Tony Navarro, Norman’s former caddie, having the more impressive record by the end of his career.
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FACT FILE
Age: 26
Nationality: Australian
Wins: 10, including the Players Championship on the US tour in 2004 and the Johnnie Walker Classic on the European Tour in 2005
Major wins: 0
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Major record in 2006: Masters: tied 27th; US Open: tied 21st; Open: tied 8th; US PGA: tied 3rd
World ranking: 5
How he qualified for World Match Play: Ninth on the Major Championship ranking
Previous WMP experience: Two appearances in 2000 and 2001