And yet, even without the presence of the most thrilling figure in the history of the event, next week’s Open may be as good as its gets. Filet mignon compared to last year’s slop. The reason? Adam Scott, I think. Yes, the snake-hipped Sergio Garcia, capable of 60 or 80, and even good old Ernie Els, having a hit with the air of a man reclining on his sofa, changing channels on his remote while threatening to nod off at any moment, will add lustre as elite internationals. Yes, Mike Weir, Louis Oosthuizen, Paul Casey, KJ Choi and CT Pan, to steal a line from Judge Smails, are no slouches. Yes, the imposing figure of Jason Day is on his way to The Australian — the golf course, not the newspaper office, although he’s more than welcome to pop in. And yes, Marc Leishman and Cameron Smith — the chipper young golfer, not the cranky old rugby league player — will ooze polish and pedigree and their involvement means the national championship will be a genuine shootout between the nation’s best players.
But I think it is Scott, more than any other, who will make the turnstiles swing. No matter that he occasionally handles a putter like a man trying to control a python. Oops, that one got away from me. Oops, that one too. Certain athletes’ accomplishments have a timeless quality to them, and Scott is forever the bloke who won the US Masters. Day has grabbed a major, too, the US PGA Championship, and that has been a fine old achievement, but Scott’s moment has been a first in a sport that throws up very few of them. When he saunters into The Australian — the golf course, not the newspaper office, although he, too, is welcome — I think we will be in the presence of a living legend. I know that sounds over-the-top. He’s a 39-year-old who’s just as happy riding a longboard in small surf as he is hitting five-irons with a high fade. But I think any way you look at it, he’s a legend still in the process of living.
It matters not that six years have passed since he experienced his dream scenario — this to win the Masters — and nailed it. It matters not that he hasn’t won a major since. It matters not that his world ranking has gone from one to 18. Still no slouch. It matters not that he brushed the Open last year because he was cranky about Day being offered more appearance money.
Last year’s entry list for the Stonehaven Cup was so shallow that The Australian’s golf correspondent, Brent Read, a mercurial golfer with an only occasional need for five shots to get out of the sand, may have won it if they gave him a start. It’s been such a weak line-up that the 64-year-old Norman may have won it if he dusted himself off, put some clothes on, hit a few practice balls and asked for a tee time with the eventual winner, Abraham Ancer. The Mexican’s name has sounded only vaguely familiar at the time — one of Santa Claus’s reindeer’s? — but he has since entered the world’s top 50. No slouch, either. He’s earned a spot in the batting order for the Presidents Cup but back then, no one had the foggiest about him. The final leaderboard has read Ancer, Dimitrios Papadatos, Jake McLeod, Marcus Fraser and David Micheluzzi. It’s been a minor miracle for the trophy engraver to get Ancer’s name right.
No less than 12 past champions are in this year’s field. Aaron Baddeley. Matt Jones. Ancer. Greg Chalmers. Stephen Allan. John Senden. Geoff Ogilvy. Robert Allenby. Craig Parry, who has “tentatively entered”. Peter Lonard. Cameron Davis. And Scott. Above all others, Scott. Faced with a downhill putt under the suffocating pressure of a playoff against Angel Cabrera at the cathedral of Augusta National, when we were all choking on our breakfasts back here in Australia, when we were all thinking the same thing — get in — he’s hit the prettiest putt of his life.
Long-term significance? Historical clout? The reason for the living legendom? Leishman has said it best: “Holing that putt was a massive moment for him but also for all Australian golfers. Whether it be me, playing with him in the last round, or Jase Day, who had a chance to win, or a 10-year-old watching it at home on TV in Australia, every one of us wanted him to win. I went back to my house when the playoff was on. I turned on the TV … I fist-pumped … jumping up and down … my wife, Audrey, was laughing at me … it was funny because I don’t even fist-pump my own putts. Then all of a sudden I’m acting like an idiot in front of the TV for Scotty.”
Leishman adds: “To get that monkey off the back for all Australian golfers is enormous. The monkey of, when are you going to win the Masters? We’ve done it. Massive. Whoever it was, I probably would have thought the same thing because it was such a big moment for Australia. It was probably the biggest thing we’d never won. Cadel Evans had won the Tour de France a couple of years earlier ... We’ve won the America’s Cup. We’ve won all the biggest events — Wimbledon, all the tennis majors. The US Masters was always there as the one we hadn’t really done.”
Until Scott came along. Here he comes again.
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The 104th edition of the Australian Open can only become more appealing by Greg Norman agreeing to a ceremonial tee-off. Negotiations have reached a stalemate. We need a guarantee that he will perform the honour with his clothes on — we need this in writing, of course, witnessed by a justice of the peace, in black ink, countersigned by Golf Australia’s lawyer, just to be sure — but given Norman’s naked ambition no longer pertains strictly to golf, his involvement in the tournament, at the time of writing, has been deemed unlikely.