Adam Scott has begun to look forward to his hero s homecoming to Australia in a few weeks time, even though he has a big golf tournament to play this week. Scott will be back in Australia soon after playing the Tour Championship in Atlanta last weekend, where the Fedex Cup series was also decided. Within the next few months he will defend his Talisker Australian Masters title at Royal Melbourne and tee it up in the Emirates Australian Open at Royal Sydney in November. He will also receive an appropriate reception for his first public outings in his home country since the famous triumph at the Masters at Augusta National in April. Sure, I expect it to be different, he told a media conference at East Lake in Atlanta. I hope that I get the chance to celebrate with everyone down there what I&aposve achieved. Part of it is me to say thank you for everyone who&aposs put into my game, the Australian public, and then people in golf too have supported me the whole way as well. So I look forward to that very much. I hope they&aposre excited still about it because I am. And I think it will be a fun month back at home to see everyone and to be able to take the green jacket down to Australia will be a really fun experience because I get a kick out of — the best thing since winning the Masters is just getting a kick out of people seeing the green jacket and just can&apost believe that&aposs actually a green jacket. It&aposs the most fun for me. The Tour Championship has an $8 million prize purse as well as the lure of the Fedex Cup lucre. But for the likes of Scott, top-ranked Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson, there is the possibility of winning the PGA Tour s player of the year award, too. It is a prestigious award, and all three are in strong contention Woods with his five tour wins, Mickelson with his British Open triumph and Scott with his Masters win as well as the Barclays Championship triumph, part of the playoffs. A win in Atlanta would make his case just about rock solid. Yeah, it&aposs been a great year for sure, but I think this week counts so much for me and how the year will be remembered by myself and others, for that matter. There&aposs so much to play for, two trophies here this week. And also potentially throwing my name in a Player of the Year debate, which I think is quite a prestigious honour amongst the company that I play golf against. So to come back to East Lake, where I&aposve had some previous success (Scott won the Tour Championship in 2006, before it was part of the season-ending playoff series) and I feel like I&aposve played a lot of good golf here over the years and haven&apost completely capitalised on it. I&aposve played a lot of great first two rounds and then kind of just drifted off on the weekend, unable to stay right in the hunt. Scott is still revelling in his drought-breaking Masters win, the first time an Australian has won at Augusta National in the tournament s history. He has the fabled green jacket with him in Atlanta this week, and admits to donning it occasionally in his hotel room. Today he also spoke about his closeness with compatriot Marc Leishman, with whom he played on that final day in April. Leishman had been in contention, too, and the Victorian actually fist-pumped when Scott made his birdie putt on the 18th green, the moment when his Come on, Aussie scream popped out. I think quite a few of the Aussie caddies sent me that picture of Leishman pumping his fist behind, which I was blown away by, and I immediately texted Marc after that because that&aposs one of my favourite things of the whole experience. From that point of that putt going in for the next two hours was just a wealth of incredible experiences that your senses can&apost handle all that stuff. But then when I saw that with Leish , now I look back on that as one of my favourite things at Augusta and an incredible sense of national pride there and what a top bloke he is for that kind of reaction. Because 30 minutes, 40 minutes before, he had just as good a chance as me to win. So it&aposs a big thing to think you&aposve got a chance to win the Masters, and then you&aposre standing on the 18th green and you know you don&apost, but to have the character to stand there and be happy for someone else just says a lot about Marc, for sure. Leishman missed out on the Tour Championship. Scott and Jason Day, who is ranked 14th on the Fedex Cup table after another consistent year, are the only Australians in the 30-man field. “Meanwhile Scott&aposs brilliant form does not show much sign of diminishing. Stopping off at the famous Shinnecock Golf Club for a round on the way to the BMW Championships last week, he peeled off a 63, rolling in a four-metre putt at the last to break Raymond Floyd&aposs course record. “It&aposs pretty cool,” Scott told golf.com. “The members got pretty excited when I came off the course, and it&aposs one of the best tracks in the world, for sure. No one has ever shot that score in over 100 years off the tees I played. So that&aposs a pretty neat thing.”
Author: Martin Blake / Golf.org.au