He busted one of great hoodoos of Australian sport, now Masters champion Adam Scott has his eye on a golfing career grand slam.
Scott wants to join the five men to have won all four current majors – the Masters, US Open, British Open and US PGA Championship – in the wake of his breakthrough success at Augusta National in April.
The 33-year-old’s wonderful run of form in the past three years – seven top-10 finishes from 12 majors including two seconds and a third as well as his Masters success – gives credence to his hope of putting his name alongside Gene Sarazen, Ben Hogan, Gary Player, Jack Nicklaus and Tiger Woods with that career grand slam.
On the eve of teeing up in the Australian PGA Championship at Royal Pines, the world No.2 says he’s in the form of his life and winning more majors is definitely within his grasp.
“As long as I keep the intensity in practice and preparation I think I can win more majors, win another Masters, win (British) Opens, hopefully US Opens and PGAs,” Scott said.
“I’d love to win the career slam, the four majors, and put myself in that really small group of players who have won all four majors.
“That’d be a good goal but that’s a long way off at the moment.
“I’ve only got one so there’s a lot of work to do.”
Scott says splitting with long-time coach Butch Harmon at the end of 2009 was a necessary step to becoming the player he is today.
Under his current coach, brother-in-law Brad Malone, Scott focused more on process than results and trimmed his schedule right back.
“Just trying to put all the pieces of the puzzle together can take some time, you can’t do it all at once but they’re starting to fall into place,” he said.
“My schedule has been fairly well set for the last couple of years with a big focus on preparing for the majors as best I can and that will stay the same.
“That’s working for me. I think I should just keep doing that.”
Scott’s pared-back schedule has earned him the title “part-time golfer” in the United States, but that’s a far from accurate description of his month Down Under.
In four weeks in Australia, Scott will play four tournaments starting with this week’s Gold Coast homecoming.
Next week he defends his Australian Masters crown at Royal Melbourne before joining Jason Day as Australia’s team at the World Cup of Golf on the same course the following week then heading to Sydney for the Australian Open.
But Scott says his decision to come home to such an uncharacteristically gruelling tournament schedule was a no-brainer.
“The decisions aren’t that hard. When you sit and think about the support I’ve got here on the Gold Coast and around Australia … not very hard decisions at all,” he said.
And while a career grand slam might be the ultimate goal, Scott’s immediate aim is to secure a trio of domestic titles by adding the Australia PGA Championship to last year’s Australian Masters and the 2009 Australian Open.
“This is the most important event for me down here in Australia. It’s the one I haven’t won,” said Scott, who shot a three-under 69 in the pro-am on Wednesday.
“It’d be a great week to do it at a new venue here at Royal Pines, which is somewhat of a home game for me.”
