Scott is regaining confidence

By Rob Oller

Columbus Dispatch

Golf is a maddening circus act, in that the harder a player tries to tame the game the wilder the caged animal becomes.

For most of last season, Adam Scott showed up at golf courses with whip and chair in hand, hoping to show the game who was in charge.

Instead, golf showed him. Scott was No. 3 on the World Golf Ranking on July 6, 2008, before plummeting to No. 76 only 15 months later. That’s what missing the cut in 10 of 18 events in 2009 does to a guy. At one point, the Aussie missed six consecutive cuts.

“Little things added up, and after a while bad habits got stuck and were hard to break,” said Scott, who enters the Memorial Tournament having climbed to No. 38 in the rankings after winning the Texas Open three weeks ago, his first PGA tour win victory since early 2008. He has won seven times in the United States, the last three in Texas.

The only thing more vacant than Scott’s game last season was his confidence. Until the downward spiral, he had one of the most beautiful swings on tour. But a perfect full swing can be sabotaged by a shaky short swing, and Scott’s putting left much to be desired. It got so bad that the poor putting leaked into his driving and iron play.

“I was hitting the ball so poorly that I couldn’t get [the club] back to the ball and confidence was lost,” he said. “And you don’t want to lose your confidence on the PGA Tour because there is a great depth of talent and the courses are tough and you can quickly embarrass yourself with bad scores.”

Scott, 29, said he questioned his ability when his game was at its lowest, wondering whether he remained a top-10 player.

“This game is hard to play well for 20 years straight. There are only a couple who did it,” he said.

The fog began to lift last season when Scott won the Australian Open, but his putting remained inconsistent. Things did not click until he received a 30-minute lesson from Dave Stockton on April 30, the Friday of the Quail Hollow Championship in Charlotte.

Stockton, a former tour player known for his touch on the greens, has worked with Phil Mickelson and Michelle Wie, among others.