Adam Scott trumped playing partner Ian Poulter is a classic final day shootout to break a 15-month tournament drought and claim his first gold jacket at the Talisker Masters on Sunday. Scott took on one of the fiercest competitors in world golf and beat him in a superb head-to-head battle at Kingston Heath, with the world No.5 overturning a one-shot deficit on the final day to win by four strokes at 17 under par. The Australian&aposs final round score of 67 was five shots better than Poulter&aposs, with the pair showing their dominance by finishing well clear of the rest of the field. Kiwis Gareth Paddison and Mark Brown had a close battle for third place, but had to settle for a share of the spoils some eight shots behind Scott. Scott and Poulter went shot for shot over the first 11 holes, but the Englishman made bad mistakes on the two par fives on the way home that ultimately led to his downfall. Poulter opted for a hybrid out of a fairway bunker at the 12th and could only move the ball forward 20m into more sand, before finding a greenside trap with his approach shot and settling for a bogey. That put him two behind Scott and when he shot over the back and failed to get up-and-down at the 14th, the Australian&aposs advantage was out to three. Scott only had to make pars over the concluding stages to hold on and he did so with relative ease, before holing a birdie putt on the last to hammer the final nail into Poulter&aposs coffin. He did receive a minor scare when his playing partner birdied the tough par-four 16th to get back within two, but Poulter inexplicably missed a simple two-foot putt on the 17th green to give that shot back and put the result beyond doubt. Such an anti-climatic finish seemed near impossible earlier in the day as the duo battled back and forth for supremacy over the front nine in a final-round pairing that felt more like a matchplay event. Scott made a brilliant birdie-birdie start to go from one behind Poulter to one in front, but the Englishman – once again looking stylish in his predominantly burgundy outfit – fought straight back. His approach at the 3rd was stone-dead as he tapped in for birdie to tie it up, before edging one clear yet again when Scott failed to get up-and-down from a tough bunker at the 4th. Scott then made three consecutive birdies starting at the 6th, with the pick of those coming at the par-four 7th when he rolled in a long putt for three to match Poulter&aposs tap-in birdie and then cheekily mocked the Englishman&aposs reaction from Saturday when he did the same thing to the Australian. The pair shared birdies at the short par-three 8th and, as the wind increased later in the day, so did their scores. However, Scott remained steady on the way home, with Poulter&aposs meltdown on the two longest holes on the course proving the difference between the two players. Queenslander Adam Crawford shot the best round of the day, with his 65 catapulting him up the leaderboard to finish in fifth place at minus six, while Peter Senior and Michael Hendry were a further two shots back in a share of sixth. There were no final-round heroics from Graeme McDowell, as the Northern Irishman and third-highest ranked player in the field could only close with a 71. That was good enough for him to share eighth spot with New South Welshman David Bransdon at two under, while halfway leader Matthew Guyatt had a day he would rather forget and could only manage a 78 to be in a tie with three others a minus one. But the day belonged to Scott, who showed why he is one of the best players in the world by beating Poulter at his own game on a memorable final day at the Masters.
Author: Jonathan Healy at Kingston Heath, Omnisport