- FedExCup Points: 50,000
- Purse: $7.0 million
- Winning Share: $1,260,000
- Yards: 7,415
PGATOUR.COM Contributor
Adam Scott surmounted several high hurdles to win his first PGA TOUR title.
There were the endless comparisons to Tiger Woods, not only because of his age (23 years, 1 month and 16 days) and the similarity of his swing to the world's No. 1 player.
There was also the fact that the Australian often played thousands of miles from home, crisscrossing the globe to compete on the European circuit and in the U.S.
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Despite the adversity Scott broke through on the TOUR during Labor Day weekend 2003 -- and in resounding fashion at an inaugural tournament, too. Scott gave the rest of the field (Woods included) little chance at the TPC Boston, shooting 20-under-par 268 to win by four over Rocco Mediate.
"I feel relieved more than anything," Scott said. "It's very difficult to win in America, not just being a foreigner, but being a young player. Only two or three young guys have done well here. Sergio [Garcia] for one, and of course, Tiger."
Scott was an accomplished victor despite his age. His first significant pro title was the Alfred Dunhill PGA Championship in 2001, an event recognized by both the South African and European tours. The next year he won the Qatar Masters and Gleneagles Scottish PGA Championship, then followed in the middle of 2003 with the Scandic Carlsberg Scandinavian Masters.
Scott had become a special temporary TOUR member a few months before that Scandinavian triumph, following a semifinal finish in the World Golf Championships-Accenture Match Play Championship (where he lost to Woods). He missed the cut in the U.S. Open and Open Championship, among the eight he missed around the world in his first 19 starts of the year.
He arrived in Boston for the first Deutsche Bank Championship needing a few sizable checks to lock up a TOUR card for 2004. The tournament was the first appearance in the area by players of this caliber in years -- the 1989 U.S. Open and 1999 Ryder Cup were at The Country Club in suburban Brookline. Daily galleries of 25,000 impressed the players and officials.
Justin Rose snagged the lead with a first-round 63 but Scott punched out his own 9-under 62 in the second round and never slowed. He eagled twice in three holes, draining a four-footer at the long 18th and after making the turn canning a 55-footer at the second. Scott collected another four birdies on the last seven holes and led Vijay Singh by two.
[That 62 was the first of three he's shot in his TOUR career, the most recent during the second round of the 2004 Booz Allen Classic, where he won in his first appearance at the TPC Avenel.]
Scott bumped his Deutsche Bank Championship lead up to three strokes following the third round, keeping second-place Jonathan Kaye and everyone else at bay with a solid 67. And as if he wasn't far enough ahead, he tacked on a five-under 66 and completed his week's toil with only Mediate (268), Justin Rose (269) and Singh (270) within a half-dozen shots.
Instead of slowing to enjoy the victory, Scott accelerated to greater heights. That autumn he became the youngest player on either Presidents Cup squad, earning three points and losing two in the 17-17 tie.
By the next spring he was triumphant again, becoming the youngest winner in THE PLAYERS Championship history by shooting 65-72-69-72 to stay one ahead of Padraig Harrington. Others might have wrung their hands over his bogey at the last, where he pull-hooked a 6-iron approach into the lake and needed a 10-foot bogey putt, but he settled their questions a few months later winning at Avenel.
And when he came back to Boston as defending champion he nearly made good on back-to-back triumphs, tying for second with Woods, three behind Singh.
Scott has continued to pile up stellar finishes, placing in the top 10 more than 30 times in his first 100 TOUR starts, a mark he reached fittingly enough with a solo seventh at the Stanford St. Jude Championship in early June.
Now a solid member of the Official World Ranking's top 10, he enters this year's Deutsche Bank Championship as one of the key actors in the tournament's history. He's all of 27 and, when it comes to younger player, some of the comparisons are being made to him.
