Masters champion Adam Scott has ‘good recipe’

Adam Scott has enjoyed wearing the Green Jacket and reckons hell have had it on 365 times when he returns to Augusta. Picture: Getty

ADAM Scott has revealed how he needed the penny to drop before realising that talent alone wasn’t enough to turn him into a major winner.

Two years after recording a runaway ten-shot victory in the 2002 Gleneagles Scottish PGA Championship, the Australian won the Players’ Championship at Sawgrass at the age of just 23 and looked set to go on and conquer the world.

It seemed inevitable that a first major would soon follow but, instead, Scott had to wait nine years before taking that significant step in a golfer’s career.

Now, as he prepares to return to Augusta National next week as the defending Masters champion, the 33-year-old has lifted the lid on what had been holding him back during that time.

“It’s interesting because I felt that [winning the Players’ Championship] was a huge opportunity for me to take the next step. But I just don’t think I knew what it took to do that and the level of commitment and the work ethic required,” he said.

“I think back then that I just relied too much on talent and kind of threw the balls up in the air in the hope that I was going to have a good week at The Masters, the US Open, The Open the PGA. It was kind of luck of the draw whether that showed up – and it never did.

“That was part of my learning curve and the difference now is that I understand that. I can control that a little bit more and make it show up for those weeks, or at least play consistently in them. The talent was there, but the right preparation and structure may not have been for me at that time to take that next step beyond the Players and go and be a consistent performer in the majors at a young age.”

Asked when he’d realised that things had to change in order to reach that next level, the world No 2 said: “I think after the frustration I felt at the end of 2010, having not really achieving what I wanted in the big events.

“It was a case of sitting down and rethinking everything about how I went about golf and life. I made a lot of changes, not all at once, but changed the way I prepared and scheduled and started doing things to suit me.

“What I felt was right and less about what other people think is right, and you know, it’s kind of accumulated into me performing better. I’ve got a pretty good recipe at the moment.”

Scott, who beat Argentina’s Angel Cabrera at the second extra hole in a play-off after a dramatic finish 12 months ago, has enjoyed every second of his reign as Masters champion after becoming the first Australian to win at Augusta.