Adam Scott Admits His Season Has Been Spoilt By ‘Fiddling’ – Fiddling With Equipment & Caddies.

Adam Scott admitted there has been ‘a lot of fiddling’ after seeing his PGA Tour season end on a disappointing low in missing the cut in the Barclays Championship in New Jersey.

Scott posted poor scores of 71 and 73 to miss the Plainfield County Club cut by two strokes.

And despite PGA Tour earnings this year of $US 1.382m it is Scott’s poorest FedEx Cup finish since he was placed 110th on the 2009 money list and the year the Cup was first contested.

Scott contested his mandatory 15 events in the 2014/15 schedule with a best finish of T4th in the WGC – Cadillac Championship and a similar result in the U.S. Open.

However while it’s been a year he proudly became a father, it’s also been a year of uncertainty, or as Scott suggests ‘fiddling’, inside the ropes for the now 35-year old.

Adam Scott ends his season missing the halfway cut

Adam Scott ends his season missing the halfway cut

‘Fiddling’ with a decision on a replacement for caddy Kiwi Steve Williams along with continuing uncertainty in relation to switching back, ahead of January 1st, 2016, to a standard size putter.

“I really need to just get everything back in place and back into the slot and get some consistency,” he said.

“There’s been a lot of fiddling with lots of different things, caddies, equipment, everything this year including starting a new family, and I now have to get everything to fall back into place and refocus and come up with a better plan.

“Also at the moment I am a bit frustrated with the putter as my putting stats have not been good this year and I look forward to next year in doing something I can’t be questioned about and moving forward and not having to deal with that issue so much

“So looking back I made a lot of adjustments this year and I need to take stock of where things are and make a good plan.”

Having played just 15 events this year and sitting out the remaining three events on the FedEx Cup Play-Off schedule it would be easily for Scott to consider playing elsewhere but he declined to entertain that notion.

“I don’t plan to add any more tournaments to my schedule and I will continue to play the Presidents Cup, Japan Open, HSBC and Australian Open,” he said.

“Looking back on these two days, it’s just that I left myself a lot of work to do around a course that you need everything to go right for you out here, a couple of bad shots out here and you are going to get punished, and I think everyone is having trials and tribulations around the greens.

“And I guess it’s the nature of this game as it’s very hard to be consistent for your whole career.  I have played the last four years relatively well and clearly I am trying to continue to play well as I am not playing that poorly but sometimes it is harder to score than others and it seems to be the case at the moment.

“So this game is still also very much a learning curve because when something changes you have to change to as well to balance it out, and I found it hard to kind to get in balance with anything this year.”

After Williams decision to retire from full-time caddying late last year Scott signed on Springbok-born bagman Mile Kerr, who had been caddying with some success for England’s Lee Westwood.

But Scott and Kerr didn’t gel and then when the Majors came around Scott managed somehow to twist Williams arm and drag him out of retirement to call the shots for the four Majors and the WGC –Bridgestone Invitational that the pair had won together in 2011.

However that arrangement ended two weeks ago and with Scott turning to long-time coach, Brad Malone to carry the clubs last week at the Wyndham Championship.

This week he got permission from Ernie Els to ‘borrow’ his own long-time caddy Ricci Roberts, but again as a stand-in measure for the Play-Off Series, but with the relationship lasting just two days.

“I was happy with how my season was going considering but there was all those other things changing throughout the year like having to adjust schedules in relations to caddies and what not, like who is available and who is not, and how it was all going down,” he said.

“Through to The Open I have played only two of nine weeks and clearly that is not the ideal schedule but being sharp coming to America, especially when my focus was playing golf and not playing a golf course like the US Open or The Open because it’s not like playing here or at Akron or Whistling Straits for that matter.

“So really I was just not ready as I hadn’t played enough.  I struggled from Akron through to here.”

Of course, Scott did not commence his 2016 season to the first week in March in contesting  the WGC – Cadillac Championship, and that was purely as his wife was giving birth to their first child.

However Scott showed the three months off at the start of 2015 had done him no harm in sharing fourth place behind American Dustin Johnson.

But looking ahead to 2016 Scott will be looking to commence a new season as before and that’s traditionally in Hawaii.

“It is a different looking Tour schedule next year and slightly in the summer but I won’t start as late as this year as starting at Doral was exceptional circumstances,” he said.

“So I would like to play a little earlier.

“Normally, I would like to play Kapalua and the Sony but they are the choices you make at the time and my wife and I thought we should stay together through the last months of her pregnancy and not go off travelling to play golf, and then go back and play soon after the birth.

“That was the call I made at the time and it while it hurt me, I am not going to question that call.”

And as Scott headed to the Plainfield clubhouse to clean out his locker he again ‘played down’ any euphoria of wearing the green and gold should he qualify for the Australian Olympic Games Golf Team.

“As for the Olympics?  My focus is on the majors and the Olympics is not my priority at all and I will be setting myself up for next April to play the best golf possible and continuing right through into the following three Majors,” he stated.

“So the Olympics is not even a priority for me to be honest.   It’s just an exhibition event that’s all and if I have to play in it, it will just be for fun.”



Comments are closed.