18 Feb 2021 | Professional golf |
Scott plots tour future
by Martin Blake
Adam Scott thinks he can win 10 or more tournaments on the US Tour in the next five years, and believes he is on track for 20 titles over his career. Father-of-two Scott, who turned 40 last year, has 14 PGA Tour victories and defends his Genesis Invitational title at Riviera Country Club in Los Angeles this week.
A 20-win career in America would match the performance of his mentor and inspiration, Greg Norman.
"Look, I think I can over the next five years I can win another 10-plus tournaments as long as I'm still physically in good shape, but that's a commitment to do that," he said today.
"I'd like to push on hard and I'd really like to see myself get on a bit of a roll at some point in the next couple years and rack up some wins. I've watched a lot of guys do it over the past or five or six years, like Brooks (Koepka) or Dustin (Johnson), who consistently wins, but thinking back to Jason Day, he won nine times in 18 months maybe.
"So I'm looking to try to work my game into that kind of form. I see all the areas at times good enough, I just have to put it all together." Scott has had the 20-win target for some time, although he says it is not so much a case of chasing the Shark. Rather, it is a round figure and it would give him lifetime membership. "I think it's a bit of a milestone for the PGA Tour," he said. "If I'm not mistaken it's kind of that lifetime membership if you hit 20 and that was the thing, that was a mark I'd like to do quickly so I can take advantage of that lifetime membership because I'm getting a bit older. "But I'm very confident that I've got quite a few wins left in me, but also I'm aware I'd like to do that at a pretty quick fashion. If I'm to achieve really what I want out of my career, I'm going to have to do that because it's not easy to win out here and time is working against me a little bit, even though I feel like I'm in a good spot." Scott is on familiar ground in LA, where he won last year and also in a weather-shortened 2005 tournament there. "I love this place here at Riviera and although I won the tournament before, it was in different circumstances, so to win last year with four rounds, but also an incredible field, an amazing atmosphere out here, special memory for me. Obviously looking back on it, it was nice to get a win in before we shut down for such a long period of time. It's nice that we can be back.
"The course is fantastic, but we're missing the crowds obviously, but I'll still be trying hard to defend this title." The Australian is winding up toward Augusta National in April, having contended in the Farmers Insurance Open at Torrey Pines just more than a week ago. His timing is good. "I feel like if you've had a good week here, it's a good measure certainly generally of where your game is at. There would be an exception if you didn't hit it well around here and you had a good week, but it can happen.
"It's such a demanding course into the greens here that if you're -- if you played well here, you're pretty much ready for any event. To answer that, Riviera is one of them. I think a tournament like Memorial might be another one that on Tour kind of stacks up to a good measure of where your game is at all around." He is working on a different look with his long locks, but insists he is not mimicking his Queensland compatriot Cameron Smith, who has a serious mullet in play."It's more of a case that all the shops are closed where I live and I don't trust myself with the clippers, so we'll see. I'm going to have to definitely tidy it up, but Cameron's definitely got me covered as far as growing mullets goes."
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