‘Old bloke’ Scott steps up as International team leader at Presidents Cup
JERSEY CITY: When Adam Scott made his Presidents Cup debut in 2003, the Australian would never have envisaged that some 14 years later he would still be waiting to taste an International Team victory over the dominant Americans.
Now 37, Scott is the veteran for the Internationals at Liberty National this week, as soft-spoken and polite as ever, but now a leader whose words carry weight in the team room.
“Adam is a very quiet guy but when he speaks it’s with such conviction and passion,” team captain Nick Price told reporters on Tuesday.
Scott is almost destined to one day lead the team himself but for now, the 2013 US Masters champion would just like to play on a winning side.
The Internationals tied the United States in South Africa in 2003, when Ernie Els and Tiger Woods duelled in a thrilling playoff that was called a draw in fading light.
That was a good debut experience for Scott, but six subsequent consecutive defeats have been sobering.
Perhaps a touch jaded but still optimistic, Scott hopes to feed off his younger teammates as much as they feed off him.
“It’s good to see a lot of young blood in the team and excitement levels are at an all-time high,” he said of a team in which six of the 12 players are aged below 30.
“It’s been a while since that was me in South Africa, so really that’s a lot of inspiration for me coming this week, (to) feed off them a little bit, too, as much as I can give advice or whatever I’m meant to do as an old bloke.
“For them to lift me up, too, and make me feel young again is important.”
Scott’s record is hardly spectacular – 13 wins, 17 losses and five halves – due mainly to an awful return in alternate shot foursomes, but he has a winning 4-3-0 record in singles, where there is nowhere to hide.
And though non-confrontational by nature, Scott has started taking on a role he feels is important, even if it does not come naturally.
“I didn’t really know what was going on in ‘03,” he said.
“But now I’ve played so much, and it seems a bit of my role, as well, the last couple of Cups has been to be a bit of a team room player for the guys and just make sure everyone is feeling comfortable.
“I’ve seen a lot at this stuff, and someone has also got to be able to speak up to these very respected captains, who might not be seeing exactly what the players are feeling sometimes, too.
“I’ve been fairly happy to fill that role the last couple of years.”
Meanwhile, Price is hopeful his “hodgepodge” team of players from around the world can gel this week and inflict a rare defeat on the United States in the Presidents Cup.
A one-sided history has kept the biennial event from gaining the status the PGA Tour hoped for when it created the Ryder Cup-copycat competition in 1994.
It has been largely a history of futility for the International team, with just one victory and one tie in 11 editions of the event, including six defeats in six attempts on US soil.
“It’s difficult for us, a team of eight nations this year, to get the camaraderie and get the team spirit,” Price said on Tuesday at Liberty National.
This will be Price’s third time at the helm, and he said the eight players returning from the close defeat in South Korea two years ago had developed a strong bond which should stand them in good stead.
“What happened in South Korea really was a shot in the arm for guy like Scott, Louis (Oosthuizen) and Jason (Day), who have never been on a winning team,” Price said.
“The team room on that Sunday night, it was a very humbling experience for me because the guys emotionally spilled their guts out to everyone how important it was to them and how much they enjoyed it.
“Even though we are a hodgepodge of a team from all around the world, we are all competitors and we like to compete and don’t like to get beaten. That’s the bottom line.
“This team is made up of a lot of golf young guys who probably have another four or five Presidents Cups in them. I think they have realised how important this event is now, and they want to take it to the next level.”
The 12-man International team comprises players from the rest of the world, excluding Europe. This year’s team features three Australians (Day, Scott, Marc Leishman), three South Africans (Oosthuizen, Charl Schwartzel, Branden Grace) and one player each from Japan (Hideki Matsuyama), South Korea (Kim Si-woo), India (Anirban Lahiri), Canada (Adam Hadwin), Venezuela (Jhonattan Vegas) and Argentina (Emiliano Grillo).
All except Kim, Hadwin, Vegas and Grillo were on the team that lost by one point to the Americans two years ago.
And even though the Internationals are technically playing an away game, Price is hoping the melting pot that is New York City will come out to support the visitors.
“Of all the cities you want to play in for the Internationals, this is the best one because it’s the most cosmopolitan city in America and made of so many ethnicities,” he said.
“We are hoping to get a lot of support out there. New York fans are as vocal as can be, so there’s going to be a lot of noise out there, which is great.
“That all adds to the atmosphere. Our guys are ready for it.” – Reuters