With Tiger's former caddie and a new putter, the Australian is riding high

A glaring gap on Adam Scott's otherwise impressive resume has been the lack of a major title, but his commanding victory at the WGC-Bridgestone Invitational on Sunday suggested that could soon change.

Leading from the front, the 31-year-old Australian completed a wire-to-wire win by four shots in a manner often seen in the past by Tiger Woods, a seven-time champion at this venue.

Scott fired a flawless 5-under-par 65 on the tree-lined South Course at Firestone Country Club, making clutch par putts when needed and giving himself a timely jolt of confidence for next week's PGA Championship in Atlanta.

"I ended up playing a really solid round of golf for this golf course," Scott told reporters after claiming his first title in one of the elite World Golf Championships (WGC).

"This is obviously one of the biggest wins of my career, to win a World Golf Championship is what I set out to do this year along with the majors, a real focus on the big events.

"I think I've done a pretty good job so far of getting myself in the hunt. That's the goal -- to give myself a chance to win these big events."

Long regarded as a future world No 1, Scott has won eight times on the highly competitive PGA Tour and on 11 other occasions elsewhere around the world.

Though he has generally failed to make a significant impact at the majors, he signalled that could soon end when he shared second place at the Masters in April.

"For whatever reason, I haven't performed my best but I really feel like I've got a good plan in place to get myself ready for these events now," Scott said.

Perhaps the two most significant changes in the Australian's approach to the game have been his decision to switch to a long putter and his new partnership with New Zealand caddie Steve Williams, who split from Tiger Woods last month.

"It's been huge for me," Scott said of his putter. "I was so inconsistent with the short putter. I didn't know what was going to show up when I went out on the golf course, whether it was going to be a decent stroke or not.

"The long putter has certainly provided me with more consistency, and with that has come the confidence. I think I'm really solid over any putt at the moment."

Scott has had the experienced Williams on his bag for four PGA Tour events, the New Zealander having been abruptly fired by the 14-times major champion on July 3.

Williams caddied for Woods on each of the seven occasions when the American triumphed at Firestone, and that turned out to be a major advantage for Scott.

"Steve's seen a guy (Woods) play incredible golf, the best golf anyone has ever played around here so many times, so absolutely it helped," the Australian said.

"He really guided me around the course nicely when he needed to step in and just make a point of where we need to be."

Scott has occasionally been perceived as too soft when in contention for the game's biggest titles and the bulldog personality of Williams could work to his advantage.

"He's right up for it," Scott said of Williams, who has previously caddied for top players including Greg Norman and Raymond Floyd and combined with Woods to win 13 majors.

"We all know his personality in those situations, and he's right up for it. It's almost like I need to show him, I've got it (the bulldog) in me, because a lot of people question it."

Scott will have an ideal opportunity to show Williams in the year's final major, the PGA Championship, next week.

Reuters

(China Daily 08/09/2011 page22)