CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- Adam Scott bill for services rendered, like the area in which the golf course in question is located, sounds out of this world.
The soft-spoken Aussie has been spending many of his weekends this season in the Florida region north of Jupiter, where he has been honing his game at the Medalist Golf Club.
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| Adam Scott changed his swing after missing the cut at the Arnold Palmer Invitational. (US Presswire) |
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"My account has been getting quite a bit of use," Scott said.
Scott, sailing along at No. 3 in the world rankings last summer when he played alongside Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson at the U.S. Open, took another weekend off after missing the cut at the Quail Hollow Championship on Friday, continuing a lengthy slide that has more than a few folks scratching their heads and speculating about the reasons.
Scott has gone four months without recording a round in the 60s and after shooting 75 in the second round at the Quail Hollow Club, missed his fourth cut in succession -- which matched the highest total of MCs he has amassed in a single season.
After a tumultuous 2008 that included a dislocated kneecap, a mysterious throat ailment that dogged him for months, a broken hand and an emotionally sapping breakup with his longtime live-in girlfriend, the 2009 season was expected to be drama- and trauma-free, and after finishing second at the Sony Open in January, the popular and personable Scott seemed poised to deliver.
Instead, he's been riding the worst slide of his pro career, complicated further by a major swing tweak he incorporated after missing the cut in March at the Arnold Palmer Invitational. Back home in Australia, the speculation about the root of his miseries has run the gamut. In no particular order:
His heart's broken ... His head's not in the game ... He's injured again ... He spent too much money on his new jet plane ... He's become a globetrotting playboy ... Or, like one of his colorful Burberry shirts, some combination of the above.
A few weeks back, an Aussie paper published a story on Scott headlined, "Golf, Girls and Gulfstreams," which insinuated that the 28-year-old had become a jet-setting skirt-chaser whose golf had suffered as a result. He's been romantically linked to actress Kate Hudson and Serbian tennis star Ana Ivanovic, and ordered a private jet that cost an estimated $40 million.
The eyes of Scott, the most unfailingly polite star on the U.S. tour, widened when the details of the story were briefly recounted.
"Fortunately, I don't read any of that crap," Scott said.
Forget the gossip and innuendo, he said. The simplest, although not sexiest, reason for his skid is the makeover to which he committed a month ago -- after whacking two balls out of bounds on the back nine of his second round at the Palmer event.
"I hit two out, and probably could have hit a couple of more out, too," he said. "That was it. It had to stop. Bay Hill was the last straw and you can't do this with smoke and mirrors anymore. I have to say, I am enjoying the challenge."
He and
Since finishing second at the Sony Open in his second start of the U.S. season, Scott had made one stroke-play cut, when he finished 66th at Doral, a limited-field event that didn't have a 36-hole cutdown. He also was eliminated in the first round at the Accenture Match Play, which has contributed to his 25-spot slide in the rankings since climbing to third in the world last summer.
As Tiger Woods said, oh, about a million times when undergoing his many swing tweaks, sometimes you have to take a step back to eventually take two steps forward. It's the "eventually" part that's toughest for the pros to stomach, because the short term has been hard to watch at times.
In his five previous years as a full-time PGA Tour member, Scott had never missed more than two cuts in a row or more than four in an entire season. In all, he had made 100 of 124 cuts on the U.S. tour entering the 2009 season. Dating to the PGA Championship last August, Scott has missed six of his last 10 stroke-play cuts in the States.
Sean O'Hair, Scott's playing partner the first two days at Quail Hollow, said Scott seems to be holding up well in terms of demeanor.
"I thought he hit it great on the back nine today," said O'Hair, who spoke at length with Scott about the swing changes. "I would not be surprised at all to see him contend at the U.S. Open."
Scott laughed when told of O'Hair's back-nine compliment.
"Well, I hit it better," he laughed. "It was easy to improve from where I was over the first 27 holes."
Self-deprecation aside, Scott scoffed at any notion that he's more interested in gallivanting than golfing, or that he's in any way disconnected from the game at the moment.
"Trust me, I have been working hard and it's just not there yet," he said. "It's a massive change. But it honestly feels like it's one solid round away from being good."
Poor shots off the tee, where Scott would have needed a chainsaw to extricate himself, have been round-wrecking momentum massacres.
"If you look at my scorecard, you see triples and doubles, real killers," he said. "I'm trying to get that under control. It still doesn't feel like the most natural thing, but I really like what I'm working on.
"The good thing is, I'm not going back into my old stuff, I am trying to be committed to the change. It's tough to do after some pretty average scores. But I haven't gone back to my old swing just to get through the round."
Amateurs sometimes have a hard time understanding why it takes top-tier players so long to incorporate changes into their arsenal, or why the adjustments cannot be handled more seamlessly. But in this regard, they are just like us. The slightest tweaks feel like structural overhauls, especially since Scott's swing has been fairly static in his decade as a pro.
"You know what it feels like for you when you move the ball forward one inch in your stance?" Scott said, laughing. "It's the same for us, especially after so long with the same move.
"But in a way, it's kind of fun, because when I get it, I know that it should be better than ever before. It just doesn't happen overnight, which is when it can get frustrating."
