Should

Adam Scott

claim a second

Players Championship

on Sunday he will be far better placed to handle it than first time around.

In 2004 Scott triumphed at Sawgrass. He was 23, the youngest winner of The Players and tipped to consistently challenge Tiger Woods at the summit of world golf. Instead, the Australian toiled under the weight of expectation and, by his own admission, because of a lack of application. His recovery is such that Scott is now a Major champion and ranked second in the world.

A top-16 place in The Players should be sufficient to send Scott to the top of the world rankings; depending, that is, on the performances of Bubba Watson, Matt Kuchar and Henrik Stenson.

“I was just a kid in 2004 – I didn’t know how hard the game was,” Scott said.

“Being inexperienced and naive worked against me back then. I took the wrong things out of winning The Players at a young age. And completely on the other side I took all the right things out of losing an Open Championship [in 2012] and made the most out of it.

“When things are good and you’re 23, it’s pretty easy to cruise along. You just expect to keep getting better and to a point that’s true; except when you’re talking about trying to get to a top-five player in the world and win the biggest tournaments.

“Your game has to withstand that kind of pressure. I don’t think I had a very good understanding of exactly what I needed to do for that to happen on a consistent basis. I showed up here and played great that week and it held up, but you can pick any other big event for the five years around that time and it didn’t.”

By a strange quirk of rankings fate, Scott would have risen above the injured Woods had he opted not to play in this tournament.

"That's a bit odd, but it's a complicated system," Scott said. "I think the rankings are pretty fair overall. And obviously playing The Players means more to me than sitting at home just to get to a number one world ranking. I'm here to win golf tournaments.

Sharp enough
"I've had a couple of good chances this year already and haven't been able to pull it off, not because it's been weighing on my mind, but I just wasn't sharp enough playing the last couple of rounds at a few events.

“I’m very motivated this week. I love coming back here. I have been playing some good golf and not getting the results I wanted, so here’s a great chance for me to get back up in contention again and hopefully pull off a win.”

The allure of the so-called “fifth major” was not strong enough for Rory McIlroy to arrive on the premises before yesterday afternoon. His pre-tournament press conference was cancelled because of his belated arrival, with a few eyebrows raised. The Northern Irishman, seeking a first PGA Tour victory since September 2012, spent the early part of the week practising at the Bear’s Club in Florida.

McIlroy famously had little time for Sawgrass during his early appearances here, but that attitude seems to have gone. The softness of the course, owing to heavy Florida rain last week, should play into his hands.

“Sawgrass is growing on me, it is,” McIlroy said. “I actually have looked forward to going there in the last couple of years.”

Kuchar, meanwhile, has been golf’s ‘Mr Consistency’ for the past two years and he returns to the PGA Tour this week after a welcome break following a victory in his last start.

The slender American ended a frustrating run of close calls in spectacular style when he holed a bunker shot on his final hole to win last month’s RBC Heritage in South Carolina, his seventh career win on the US circuit. Kuchar then took two weeks off to spend precious time with his family and said he felt energised and excited on his return to a “special” venue where he clinched the coveted Players title in 2012.

"I'm always excited to be back here," he said.
Guardian Service