Scott more certain than ever

Associated Press

Akron

There’s no silver claret jug for Adam Scott, only a silver lining.

For two days after the British Open, where Scott lost a four-shot lead with four holes to play, he holed up at his home in the Swiss Alps and tried to digest what went wrong.

The numbness he felt that Sunday evening, when Ernie Els was introduced as the champion golfer of the year, stayed with him.

He didn’t beat himself up. He didn’t curl up in a corner. It was a time of quiet reflection, just as it is after every major.

It’s when he went to the golf course at Crans-Sur-Sierre to hit balls that his outlook brightened considerably.

“I hit the first few balls, and I hit them nice,” Scott said Wednesday. “And that was kind of a reminder that it’s not horrible and I don’t know how to play golf anymore.

“It was just four holes that I’ll have to learn from and be tougher on myself next time I’m in that position, for sure.”

That’s what Scott took away from Royal Lytham & St. Annes. He is convinced there will be a next time. He’s convinced there will be a major championship trophy in his name.

Scott still hasn’t seen replays of that final hour. The soft bogey on the 15th. The three-putt bogey on the 16th. Belting a pure tee shot on the 17th, only to hit 6-iron to the left of the green to set up another bogey. And a 3-wood into the bunker on the 18th, which led to one final bogey to finish one shot behind.

“Look, I can imagine how it probably looked,” Scott said. “If it was me watching somebody else, I certainly could feel for them. But for me ... I’m disappointed that I didn’t win from that position, but I left that major the same as I’ve left every other one — and that’s empty-handed.”

Different from the others was remembering the first 68 holes that put him in that position.

Scott had never seriously contended in a major until last year at the Masters, where he made clutch putts over the closing holes and played well enough to win until Charl Schwartzel made history at Augusta National by closing with four straight birdies to win by two.

And now the Open.

Greg Norman, his golfing hero who knows more than most about coping with major setbacks, was among the first to call him Sunday night.

More phone calls followed, along with more text messages than Scott could count. That included an exchange with Els, a close friend whose major triumph was tempered slightly by the way Scott lost. He also ran into Nick Price, a three-time major champion who squandered his first chance at the 1982 British Open when he closed with 73 and finished one shot behind Tom Watson.

The words helped, all of them, though Scott was well on his way to moving on.

“My game is in really great shape,” Scott said.