Golf: A positive COVID-19 test slowed down Adam Scott’s Masters prep but he will still lead the Aussie charge
A positive COVID-19 test slowed down Adam Scott’s Masters prep but he will still lead the Aussie charge at Augusta this week
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When he was forced off golf courses everywhere at exactly the wrong time, Adam Scott sent an SOS for a putting mat.
Being thrust in to 10-days of isolation after a positive COVID-19 test in late October, just as the former world number one was ramping up his Masters preparations, was the biggest spanner in the works Scott could imagine.
The Aussie great works his entire calendar around preparing for the majors, meticulously plotting a path that allows him to peak at Augusta, like he did for his famous victory in 2013.
Scott had stopped playing after the US Open in the middle of September, rested, then resumed his intense training regime and arrived at the ZOZO Championship in California ready to play.
But instead he was sent to a hotel in LA, stuck in a single room, saved only by a putting mat and some “gifts” from Scotty Cameron, who make his putters, to keep him going until he emerged on November 2.
“I bought a putting mat for the hotel room that arrived and Scotty Cameron sent up -- his team sent up some stuff for me to just have some fun with,” Scott said after arriving at the Houston Open Last week, an added playing stop this year in his Masters preparation.
But while Houston was in his plans, being holed up for 10 days with no golf was not and Scott didn’t get the October look at Augusta he had planned to get ready for the first ever Masters in November.
Scott hasn’t missed a Masters since 2002, every one of them in April, but knows this year the course will look, and play, differently.
“For quite a few years I had always kind of arrived (at Augusta) on Friday night or Saturday morning and played over the weekend, but that wasn‘t really the plan this year,” Scott said. n
“It was to get up there maybe after the ZOZO and go and visit for a day or so and just get a look at it, I guess, in this fall time of year.
“So now I‘m just going to go in Sunday night and play. I mean, I feel like it’s nice to go and visit and it’s nice to get familiar, but I’ve been there a lot and I am fairly familiar with it.”
The absence of patrons, as fans are called, will give the whole event a different look and feel, which Scott knows all too well.
“The crowd really enhances the atmosphere, if they‘re not responsible for most of it,” he said.
“I have very strong memories of those final couple of hours on the golf course (in 2013) as the clouds got low and the rain set in and it got a bit cool and it stayed that way.
“You know, the patrons there at Augusta, it became like a bit of a hardcore sports fan feeling and it was such a great atmosphere, especially in the playoff with myself and Cabrera.
“Everyone was out there wet, but it didn‘t matter, they were at the Masters and watching some good golf. I certainly got a strong memory from that. So there will be something missing, for sure.
Scott leads a five-pronged Australian attack, which is the same as it has been in recent years, with Jason Day, Marc Leishman and Cameron Smith. The addition this year is Victorian amateur Lukas Michel, who won his way to Augusta with victory in last year’s US mid-amateur champion.
That victory also earned 26-year-old Michel a start in this year’s US Open, where he missed the cut after an opening round of 80 at Winged Foot.
Day is also rounding out his Masters preps in Houston, while Smith will be first up since finishing tied for fourth at the ZOZO event Scott had to withdraw from.
Smith took a break after declaring he was “cooked” following a packed schedule he played to recapture his best, a plan which worked.
Leishman, the world number 26, also hasn’t played since the ZOZO, where he finished 70th, part of run of middling form after the PGA Tour returned from its COVID-19 enforced lay-off.
The genial Victorian is suited to Augusta, where he finished ninth in 2018, and has often been around the lead going in to the weekend.
But his $101 odds this time around are indicative of where his game was at last month.
Originally published as Golf: A positive COVID-19 test slowed down Adam Scott’s Masters prep but he will still lead the Aussie charge