Adam Scott Wins Two in a Row

Last updated on: March 6, 2016 at 10:44 pm by Kermit Zarley

Adam Scott Wins Two in a Row 2016-03-06T22:44:27-07:00 Kermit Zarley

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Australian pro golfer and PGA Tour player Adam Scott just won the WGC-Cadillac Championship at Doral in Miami today by one stroke to make it two wins in a row. He had won the Honda Classic last week in West Pam Beach. This guy is on a roll.

Adam Scott comes across as a really nice guy. He’s handsome, 35 years old, and recently became a father. Plus, he’s got an absolutely terrific golf swing. I almost never see a Tour pro’s swing that I can’t find something to criticize. Not so with this Aussie.

Adam Scott used the long putter anchored against his chest for years. He said it helped revive his career. Golf pundits thought the new USGA rule against it, that went into effect this year, would seriously hurt Scott’s game since he’d have to give it up. And although it is legal to use it by not anchoring it against the body, he decided to putt conventional this year with the short stick, but going with that weird claw grip in the right hand (for right-handed golfers). Looks like it’s really paying off for him.

Adam started his last round today three strokes behind the leader, Rory McIlroy. When Rory has the 54-hole lead, he usually wins, especially with a three-shot lead. But he couldn’t buy a birdie today. Yet Scott double-bogied two out of his first three holes. Now, 99.9 percent of the time, that would spell disaster and end any hopes of winning the golf tournament. But don’t count Adam Scott out that easy. Last week he won with a quadruple bogey on Saturday. Folks those are unheard of mishaps for eventual champions in the very competitive environment of the PGA Tour. Yet, when Adam Scott was early into his back nine, he had the lead at 12 under par and coasted into the clubhouse for the victory. But not without a little hiccup on the last hole.

For decades, that par-four eighteenth hole at the Blue Monster has been rated the toughest finishing hole of all regular tournaments on the PGA Tour. There’s water left on the tee shot that runs all the way alongside the narrow green. So, if you don’t hit the fairway on your tee shot, the safe play is to the right in the rough and palm trees.

That’s where Adam drove it with a one shot lead–to the right. At about 190 yards to the green for his second shot, a palm tree was about twenty feet in front of him and right on his line to the pin on the green. The TV commentators thought he would play safe to the right of the tree. If so, he would have aimed at the bunkers to the right of the green and maybe tried to hook it a little. Instead, Adam played left by aiming at the water and trying to fade the ball. A slightly left-to-right wind favored his ball turning right. However, he was in the rough. Although his lie didn’t look bad, you hit fliers from that Bermuda grass more than from northern Bent grass. A flier is an iron shot in which grass between the ball and the club face at impact causes the ball to slide up the club face some, thus without gripping the grooves. The result is that the ball sails through the air with less backspin, causes it to land farther and roll more. And since the ball doesn’t grab the club face well, you can’t depend on trying to hit a fade or a hook.

Sometimes in sports, it’s better to be lucky than good. Adam’s shot didn’t cut like he wanted, so it may have been somewhat of a flier. There is only a few yards between the left side of the green and the lake. The ball landed a few yards to the left on the green, on the sloping bank between the green and the water, and the ball stuck and didn’t roll down into the water like it often does. It reminded me of Freddie Couples winning the Masters, when he did the same on the treacherous little par-three twelfth hole at Augusta National. His ball hit on the bank and stuck, not rolling down into the water as so often happens.

Adam Scott then played a pretty good pitch to about ten feet and made the putt for a one-stroke victory over Bubba Watson and a 12-under par 276 total. Now they’re off to Orlando for Arnold Palmer’s tournament. I don’t know about you, but I’m picking Adam Scott.

[In my second year on the Tour, in 1966, I finished second at Doral on the Blue Monster. I lost by one stroke when my ten-foot birdie putt stopped on the edge of the cup, with nearly half of the ball hanging over the hole.]

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