Adam Scott chasing return to winner’s circle on familiar territory
Adam Scott – in a light hearted moment at today’s media conference – image AGM
Adam Scott’s long association with Royal Queensland is just one of the motivations and reasons he has for producing a winning performance at this week’s Australian PGA Championship.
“I’ve been a member here at RQ since I was 11, so it’s always fun to come back here and now playing a major Australian championship here is fantastic,” said Scott at today’s pre-event media conference.
“It would be a really nice feeling to win this championship at my home track. So, a lot of strong memories here of playing junior pennants and pennants for RQ. A lot of training sessions here with the Queensland State team over the years, and of course, got to spend a lot of time with Charlie Earp as a young aspiring golfer, which was incredible.”
Scott played his first PGA Championship as a professional here when the event was played here for two years in 2000 and 2001 before being taken to Hyatt Regency Coolum on the Sunshine Coast then to RACV Royal Pines on the Gold Coast and returning to Royal Queensland in early 2022.
Scott is also keen to contend and possibly win the Australian PGA Championship for the third occasion having won in 2013 and 2019 at RACV Royal Pines on the Gold Coast.
“There’s a lot of incentive to play really well, not just for my own pride and expecting myself to play well in front of my home crowd, but for the confidence of just winning something.”
“It has been nearly four years since Scott last tasted victory at the Genesis Invitational on the PGA Tour and he is keen to get that winning feeling once again.
“I obviously haven’t found it that easy to win the last couple of years and the couple of times I’ve been close, I’ve come out on the wrong side, so I’d like to get back in that winner’s circle.”
“For a while there I was putting a few victories on the board down here, but it’s been a few years, so I’d like to win a couple more.”
Even at the age of 43 Scott feels more than capable of contending with golfers considerably younger than himself.
“I mean, the good thing for me is I’m healthy still at 43 and moving well. I’m trying to just put all the pieces of the puzzle together. I think the game’s moved quite quickly the last few years and I think I’ve been a bit slow to react in some areas, so like with the equipment, I’m just putting it all together and hopefully we’ll get it right and we’ll have it tested and ready to go.
“But I feel like I’ve got all the game to win more and wrap up a few more wins down here, for sure.”
In recent years Scott has built his scheduling on peaking for the majors but in 2023 his performances at that level were well below his best with 29th at the USPGA Championship being his best.
“Yeah, it was disappointing for sure. I made a big decision back in March to change some equipment, which obviously is not the ideal time to do it, because it’s about to be the middle of major season but the frustration of feeling like I was not using stuff that’s really relevant to how the modern game is played and it was feeling too hard for me.
“I had to play too perfect to contend and I felt like I’m a better player than having to play perfect to contend, meant in the right way, like the best players in the world contend when they’re not playing perfect as well.
“So I made some changes and it took a while to kind of settle into some of those. I really struggled with my iron play this year. If you look at the stats, everything’s great except my iron play was the worst of my career and there were some positives on drive side and the short game side and the putting side, but the iron play dragged me down and made me pretty average.
“Like I said before, I’ve looked at the irons and the ball to address that. I’m not making excuses, I just didn’t play well enough either, but I have been juggling a little more rather than being set and consistent, which is where I’d like to be and what I’d like to be doing going into the start of next year.”
Given Scott’s considerable standing in the game it was perhaps inevitable he would be asked about the still-to-be-decided association between LIV Golf and the PGA Tour and like most others he is still in the dark as to what the outcome might be.
“It’s really hard to know if the deal’s going to go through or not. As everyone knows, there’s four or five other interested parties investing in the PGA Tour like PIF, so management have a lot of work to do to get some final deals on the table so the board can have a look at it and see if there’s a deal that is good for everyone at the Tour.”
Scott is in the first group off from the 10th tee on day one.
