There is no one in the golf world at this moment other than Adam Scott who should be wearing the emperor’s clothes.  Building on his Master’s victory in April and his win at The Barclay’s this fall, he has been on a run of good form the last month that has all the best players shaking their heads.

Until the very last hole at the Australian Open at Royal Sidney yesterday he was staring at a folkloric accomplishment, winning the Australian Triple Crown. This was set up by his wins the previous three weeks in Australia including the first two legs of the Australian Triple Crown-the Australian PGA Championship at Royal Pines on the Gold Coast and the Australian Masters at Royal Melbourne.  He threw in a third team victory for good measure with Jason Day winning the Two-Man World Cup at Royal Melbourne last week.

As you can read in this Boston Herald account of the final round of The Australian Open, Scott did everything he had to do to add his name to the distinguished list of Australian Open winners and become only the second player in history to win all three legs of the Australian Triple Crown in the same year.  That is everything except account for Rory McIlroy who was apparently closer than he appeared in the rear view mirror.

After an emphatic statement shooting 62 on the opening day, Scott just played as good as he needed to keep the field well at bay.  McIlroy, who has slowly been regaining his own swagger the last month, had a 65 on day two to make his presence known.

At the start of the final round Rory was four back of Scott and the two seemed to feint and parry their way through the first four holes until Rory unleashed his mojo with four straight 3’s  including an electric eagle on the seventh to Scott’s par 5.  Rory got within one at the turn and they went back into fencing mode over the back nine with Scott failing to convert a number of 10 footers that would have given him more breathing room.

Side-by-side in the 18th Fairway it came down who would blink on the final approach shot.  Rory stuck it to 10 feet while Adam’s effort meandered over the green leaving a dicey up-and-down to save par.  His pitch wandered away from the tin and he missed a long come back putt to settle for bogey.  Rory did what Rory does and just calmly make the decisive birdie putt on the last revolution to effectuate a two-shot swing and steal the Crown from Adam’s crown.

Great TV drama….two young champions pushing each other to the limit….the stuff of major championship golf.

(Click to read the Boston Herald account of Rory’s final round in the Australian Open)

Boston Herald
November, 2013