Scott cracked a bottle of champagne on Monday night with some friends to commemorate his rise to No. 1 in the world for the first time. Although he has recently talked down his chances of overtaking Tiger Woods at the top of the rankings, this is not to be confused with the idea that he did not covet it.
Scott told reporters at the Crowne Plaza International in Fort Worth Texas that he planned on having the cork from the bottle cast in sterling silver and engraved for posterity.
"You’ve got to enjoy the moment I think, a lot of the time, and certainly playing here this week is for me,'' the Australian said. "It's something that you throw around a lot when you're a kid, when you're 12 years old, that you'll be the best player in the world. It's really quite incredible that it happened.''
Scott is only the second Australian to achieve the No. 1 ranking of the official list, behind Greg Norman, who was world No. 1 for a total 331 weeks, for the last time in January, 1997. Karrie Webb was unequivocally the best female player in the world in the early-2000s, on her way to seven major titles, but there were no official world rankings for women at the time. Webb is still ranked in the top five in the world now that women's golf does have official rankings.
Scott, the 2013 Masters champion, became the 17th player to assume the No. 1 ranking last Monday despite not playing anywhere, an anti-climactic ascent after several chances to grab the top post with a good performance in a tournament. While it was not the way he would have wanted to take Woods' mantle, he is not the first to do so under the rolling two-year rankings. Lee Westwood of England grabbed the No. 1 berth the same way several years ago, sitting at home in England.
"It would have been nice, but all the playing I did added up to this anyway,'' Scott said. "It's just the way the system works. Sure, it would have been awesome to win a tournament and jump to No. 1 as some guys have, but it wasn't the way. Hopefully I can get on and try to win a tournament this week or next week and try to keep myself on top of the list.''
Scott, 33, first cracked the top 10 in 2004, and spent time at No. 3 in the 2006 and 2007 before a lull, slumping outside the top 20 before a rally that began in 2011. He has climbed steadily since, and his record in majors over the past four years is the best of any player.
His plans for this week at Colonial are plain. ''Enjoy this week, and I enjoyed Monday night … but you've got to do that to kind of understand,'' he said. "Otherwise, everything becomes very monotonous, and nothing's great and nothing's bad, but you can’t be like that. You've got to go through the highs and the lows.''
Scott initially had not planned to play this week, as part of his customary method of not committing to too much golf in the first part of the season. But the US Open is coming up in the next few weeks, and he still has not won in 2014 in seven starts, so he added the Crowne Plaza to his schedule.
"I'm going to have to work pretty hard to stay on top, but a part of coming here this week was to play as the No. 1 golfer in the world and enjoy it, at least for a week,''he said. "From there, we'll see what happens.''
Scott tees off at 7.44am Thursday in Texas (10.44pm AEST) with Jimmy Walker and Zach Johnson. There are 10 Australians in the field including the likes of in-form John Senden, Geoff Ogilvy and Marc Leishman.
The Official World Golf Rankings
2 Tiger Woods (USA) 7.84
3 Henrik Stenson (Sweden) 7.72
4 Matt Kuchar (USA) 7.12
5 Bubba Watson (USA) 7.04
6 Jason Day (Australia) 6.60
7 Sergio Garcia (Spain) 6.26
8 Justin Rose (England) 6.10
9 Jordan Spieth (USA) 6.09
10 Rory McIlroy (Nth Ireland) 5.76
50 John Senden
62 Marc Leishman
110 Brett Rumford
119 Steven Bowditch
139 Scott Hend
159 Geoff Ogilvy
166 Marcus Fraser