The Loop

Adam Scott aiming for Jordan Spieth and Australian Open, is ‘very fired up to win’

November 25, 2015

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The ordinarily mild-mannered Australian Adam Scott is taking dead aim at the Australian Open and defending champion Jordan Spieth this week. “The swagger might not be back just yet, but Adam Scott is at least talking the talk,” Adam Pengilly of the Sydney Morning Herald writes. “If you could just peel away Scott's trademark sunglasses for a moment there is likely to be a steely glare. ‘I'm very fired up to win the Australian Open this week, the world No. 12 said. ‘It's got a big feel about it to me. I've been building it up in my own mind, just knowing Jordan [Spieth] is coming back to defend. [Caddie Steve Williams] is certainly treating this week just like I've spoken of, this is our major this week and we're going to treat it accordingly. We're here on a mission.’”

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“Unbeknown to the golfers out enjoying a hit on the Old Course on a decent November day, their favourite pastime is being put under the microscope in St Andrews this week in a bid to improve pace of play,” Martin Dempster of the Scotsman writes of a two-day conference called Time for Golf. “‘Anything that we can do to create some energy, some headlines and some coverage of it (pace of play) is good,’ said Martin Slumbers, the R&A’s new chief executive. ‘The game has been getting slower for the last 20 years or so and it is correlated with participation.’”

“Weeds, crabgrass and fallen palm fronds cover the wildly overgrown greens of what was once the Mizner Trail Golf Club, its decrepit state emblematic of the fate of hundreds of golf courses around the country…A short drive away, however, perspiring construction workers in yellow vests swarmed on a recent afternoon over the emerging structure of a 150,000-square-foot activities center, part of a $50 million renovation of the 44-year-old Boca West Country Club,” Nick Madigan of the New York Times writes in this story on Florida golf, “the extremes of failure and success,” and “a nationwide upheaval in the sport.”