The surf lover in Adam Scott took one look at the waves on Tuesday at Kapalua, Hawaii, and decided it might be a good idea to move up the time for his pre-tournament press conference ahead of the Sentry Tournament of Champions.
“Some waves coming this afternoon, so I might go for a quick paddle before the day’s up,” he said. “Good preparation, I think.”
Scott was riding a wave of momentum last year when he won the Australian PGA Championship in December and Genesis Invitational in February in consecutive starts and improved to No. 6 in the Official World Golf Ranking. It was his hottest stretch of golf since 2016 for the former World No. 1 and had him believing that a second major title was within reach for the 2013 Masters champion. But soon after the Tour suspended its season in March due to the global pandemic and whatever momentum he was riding before COVID-19 was lost.
“I think that last season wasn’t really a season for me,” he said.
On the bright side, Scott spent three glorious months at home in his native Queensland, Australia, with his family, celebrated his 40th birthday in July, took an abundance of caution after the return of golf and still managed to test positive for COVID-19 shortly before the Masters, which spoiled his preparation. He did little more than make the cut in the three majors contested in August, September and November.
“I played okay at the end of last year, but not up to what, the standard I want to play if I’m out here doing it,” he said.
Scott’s victory at Riviera punched his ticket back to Kapalua, where he finished runner-up in 2004, for the first time since 2014. Sometimes, it was a personal choice but Scott’s 14th career Tour victory last season ended a nearly four-year winless drought.
“It was definitely a priority for me to put this event on the schedule. It’s a great way to start the year,” Scott said. “It was a tricky one to get back to and every time I missed it, I regretted it, but it was off the back of playing in Australia and it being the first week of the year made it a very short holiday season for me.”
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Added Scott, who has slipped to No. 21 in the world: “For me, at this moment, I need to kind of start putting some good results on the board and get my FedEx Cup campaign going a bit.”
While the calendar just flipped to a new year, this week’s Tour stop marks the 13th event of the 2020-21 wrap-around season and Scott already has eyes on the Players in March and Masters in April.
Vijay Singh, Phil Mickelson and Tiger Woods, three of the players that he battled against in his salad days all won majors in their 40s and Scott would like to do the same.
“My time is becoming less and less, that’s for sure, all these good young players, so I would like to contend a little more and win a little more before my time’s up,” he said.
Fellow Australian Luke Elvy, who commentates for CBS Sports among others, compared Scott to a Rolls Royce needing a minor tune-up to return to his pre-COVID form.
“He’s just a filter change from being back where he was,” Elvy said, “and if the putts drop, as he said, ‘I just need to putt averagely, I’ll be fine.’ ”
Indeed, Scott’s ballstriking always has been the envy of his peers while his putter tends to run a bit hot and cold. Scott, who primarily used an unanchored broomstick putter last year, said he’s been toying around with an arm-lock putter of late.
“I putted like that a couple years ago,” he said. “It’s just kind of what I like on this type of green here this week and, quite grainy, quite slow, a lot of slope, and can be a lot of wind around as well and the long one, I feel like I’ve battled with a little bit out there in the past.”
It’s given Scott renewed confidence that he can still achieve his goal of becoming a multiple major champion before his time runs out.
“I feel like the work I’ve done recently is really good,” he said, “so, I’m eager to see it kind of get a result for me the next few weeks on Tour and start moving in the right direction before the big stuff in the spring.”
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