Scott on course for rise in ranking
ADAM Scott hates feeling like Mr Average on the golf course and insists birdies and babies can mix for a return to the top of world golf.
A big showing at the Australian PGA, starting at Royal Pines today, would fire the ideal flare to show fans worldwide he is ready to start climbing from his lowest world rank ( No. 31) since 2010.
Scott ( pictured) is going to do it with a return to the long putter because the record putting stats of Bernard Langer and Scott McCarron on the US Champions Tour have swayed him to use a non- anchoring technique with the wand a centimetre or two off his chest.
The August birth of his second child Byron, named after golfing legend Byron Nelson, will always mark this as a great year for Scott but the trade- off was less practice time.
In Scott’s typical glass halffull way, seeing his results eroded in a winless year has alerted him to exactly what he needs to fix to duel on equal footing again with Dustin Johnson, Jordan Spieth, Rory McIlroy and new young guns such as Justin Thomas.
“It’s very hard not to get frustrated because I just can’t handle the average stuff,” Scott said of 2017.
“My ball striking really suffered this year through lack of practice and when your strength weakens, it doesn’t have great results. Someone told me I had nine top 15s but that doesn’t get you very far.”
Most golfers would love an average Scott year and the $ 2.2 million in prizemoney it came with but the popular Queenslander is yearning for a better balance next year so he can get back to where a former world No. 1 belongs.
More practice at his Baha- mas base and a return to his majors routine of tuning up, rather than playing, the week before the biggest four weeks of 2018 is part of the blueprint.
“There isn’t dominance at the moment ( at world No. 1) with different guys up there playing great golf and the door is definitely open to be one of them,” Scott said.
“Physically and everything else, I think there’s nothing stopping me getting back to the top. I want to be with my family as much as I possibly can and spend time with the kids but I also know what it takes for me to play really good golf. It’s going to be finding the peace between that battle of where I put my priorities.”
Kids Byron and Bo, 2, normally shatter the morning calm at 5am so Scott still had to set an ungodly 3.30am alarm for today’s 6.10am opening round with Spaniard Sergio Garcia on the Gold Coast.