Adam Scott – his PGA Tour season may well rest on this week’s performance – file photo USGA
This week’s Wyndham Championship at the Sedgefield Country Club in Greensboro, North Carolina brings the regular season of the 2021 PGA Tour to a conclusion with the three FedEx Cup playoffs to follow over the next three weeks.
Players who aren’t already there or a close to the top 125 will be looking for a big week to consolidate their position ahead of next week’s Northern Trust Championship in New Jersey and a chance to secure some of the significant monies available via the playoffs.
Six Australians will take their place in this week’s field and for some their performance will determine as to whether they can keep their hopes alive of advancing through the Playoffs.
Of the Australians playing this week, Matt Jones is the best placed of the Australians on the FedEx Cup table the two-time Australian Open Champion currently in 36th place.
While he has no concern about advancing through to the Northern Trust Championship and the BMW Championship the following week he will be keen for a big week in Greensboro to open the possibility of making it to the Tour Championship in three weeks’ time.
Jones does not enjoy a good record at this event, other than a 5th place finish in 2013, but that aside he has missed seven of ten cuts and his form since the win at the Honda earlier in the year leaves little hope of a lot of improvement at the Sedgefield Country Club.
Perhaps the most interesting of this week’s Australian participants is Adam Scott who is currently 121st on the FedEx Cup list and needing to be inside the top 125 by week’s end it is important he at least makes it to the weekend.
Scott has played the tournament on only three occasions throughout his lengthy career, the last of those coming in 2015 when finishing 63rd. Clearly he is here to see if he can advance to New Jersey next week.
Scott has hardly set the world on fire in 2021 but he has made all but one of 14 cuts and, although only one of them has resulted in a top ten, he knows he needs to improve sharply this week and is aware that things can turn around quickly.
“Yeah, it would be good to have my best week of the year, I would have to say,” said Scott. “That’s what I’m looking for this week. Certainly, coming here hoping to win, but to play some good golf and kind of jump up in the FedExCup would be fantastic going into next week.
Obviously, it’s a course I’m also very fond of, and you just never know, that’s the beauty of the Playoffs. If you get hot at the right time, you can run all the way through to Atlanta and that’s my only strategy this time around.”
“I’ve just heard good reports over the last few years about Sedgefield, and the work they’ve done on the greens looks great, he added when asked of his thoughts on the course and what he has heard since he was last here six years ago.
“It’s a classic golf course and I’ve enjoyed a couple days out there so far. It’s a good test. Definitely, want to be playing from the short grass this week and hitting plenty of greens. It will be my focus. And I like the way I’m playing. I’m not liking the way I’m scoring, but I’m looking to change that this week.
“I think it’s been frustrating and it’s just been the accumulation, I think, of the restrictions and what that’s left me not being able to do, whether it’s practice or train or the many changes this year. Very limited time with my coach. I ended up not even working with my trainer this year because it was just impossible to actually get together.
“A lot of time away from the family because I ended up coming in blocks to the States and that certainly had some effect, for sure. And then just the biggest mistake I think I made was not lowering my expectations on the golf course at the start of the year and thinking I was just going to play like a champion the whole time, even though nothing was really operating at the level I normally do.
“So I’m trying to give myself a bit more of a mental break with my expectations at the moment. I’m actually playing okay, but I think a little bit of fatigue has certainly been in there. I just need to let go a little bit.”
Victorian, Cameron Percy, is another close to the bubble and need an exceptional week if he is to force his way into the top 125.
Percy is currently 133rd on the list but in eight starts at the event has a best of 33rd so he too will need a week boxing well above his weight if he is to be on his way to Liberty National next week.
Aaron Baddeley, Rhein Gibson and John Senden are the other Australians in the field.
