The story behind Adam Scott’s magical Masters victory in 2013 and the chaos that sparked it all. Where were you when it happened?
Featured photograph by Harry How/Getty Images
Adam Scott, 42 last July and a full decade removed from his only Major-championship victory, turned pessimistic Australians into true-blue believers in 2013 by winning his – and his country’s – first Masters green jacket in the most dramatic of circumstances on a rain-soaked Sunday at Augusta National Golf Club. So many countrymen before him had tried and come up agonisingly short – including his childhood hero Greg Norman. Ironically, it was with the assistance of Norman’s former caddie Steve Williams that Scott would eventually end a hoodoo that had haunted Aussie golf for generations.
Australian Golf Digest’s Evin Priest managed to reunite Augusta’s antipodean dream team for his No.1-rating podcast, “Chasing Majors”. Together they reminisced about one of the most popular Major-championship victories of all time, and the events that led to it. To help commemorate the 10-year anniversary of Scott’s iconic “C’mon Aussie” moment, we selected our favourite excerpts from a conversation like no other. Of all the takeaways to come out of this extraordinary recollection, one thing stood out like Amen Corner on a Sunday afternoon: it’s little wonder Scott and Williams are back working together again. ▶ ▶ ▶
THE ORIGIN OF A SPECIAL RELATIONSHIP
ADAM SCOTT: I was very excited because I was at a point in my career where my game was really good, but I hadn’t got the results in the big tournaments that I really wanted or believed that I could have. And I was looking for something, and it was a little opportunistic of me, maybe, to give Steve a call when I did. Fortunately, Steve was open-minded enough to say, “Yep, Adam, I respect what you’ve done. And I’ll come out for a week or two here while Tiger was out.” And I would’ve benefited from just those two weeks having Steve on the bag, and then things happened the way they happened [Woods and Williams parted ways in 2011], and it worked out that Steve stayed on my bag from that point, which was great.
STEVE WILLIAMS: I remember Adam picking me up from Heathrow Airport. It actually blew me away, to be honest, because not many pros take the time to do something like Adam did there. That meant the world to me, and it actually showed that he was genuinely interested in looking after me. And that got the relationship off to a great start. The other thing I do actually remember, and I always think about it, is Adam wears a jumper unless it’s 30 degrees, and it was a beautiful London day, and I jumped in his car and he had a bloody flash jumper on. I thought, Geez, are you coming out of the ice cubes? So two things stick in my mind about that day. One is he had a jumper on – I think it was 25 degrees – and secondly, it was a great ride down to the golf course. The first event that I caddied for Adam was at the US Open at Congressional. And I think that, although he didn’t play to his standard that week, that was a great start, because in my mind I thought Adam’s preparation wasn’t ideal, the way he went about his preparation for that tournament. He was, in a sense of where the viewers will know, over-golfed before the tee-time on Thursday. So, when we completed that tournament, from that moment forward, things changed a little bit in Adam’s routine, how we went about preparing for these Majors, being ready to play 72 holes of golf right from the first tee on Thursday. A few little changes, which I think made a great difference to Adam’s preparation and to his performance.
SCOTT: That was duly noted, and Steve made a point about that. We had a very upfront relationship, certainly led by Steve on the things he saw. But that was the benefit of me putting Steve on the bag at that point. Even though I didn’t perform my best or well, even at that US Open, I knew from the way a couple of things were communicated on the course that Steve was different in terms of caddieing, and this was going to be really good for me. He identified what he saw as being weaknesses in my preparation. And obviously to that point, he also watched someone [Tiger] do it the best that maybe has ever played, for the past 15 years or so. So, I was absolutely open to using any of that insight to my advantage, and we quickly adjusted things. He also identified, quite bluntly, a couple of weak spots in my game that I took on the chin and to heart and did my best to try to make the most of this opportunity when Steve got on my bag.
WILLIAMS: When you go to work for a player of Adam’s calibre, you feel a sense that you need to get a victory very quickly to justify your position as a caddie. I felt the same with Tiger, Ray Floyd, anyone I caddied for – these guys are great players and we were successful very quickly in our relationship. And look, the emotions were running high, and I obviously said a couple of things that I shouldn’t have said [Williams hailed his first victory with Scott, the 2011 WGC–Bridgestone Invitational, as the “most satisfying win of my career”]. But I don’t regret that. I mean, the emotions were high. I was disappointed in the way my relationship ended with Tiger. But on the flipside, in the world that we live in, in this golf environment, one door shuts and another door opens. And I was excited to caddie for Adam because my goal when I first went to caddie for Adam was, I wanted to see Adam Scott be a Major champion. And to this day, I’d like to see him be a multiple Major champion.
A GAME BUILT FOR AUGUSTA NATIONAL
WILLIAMS: I always thought Adam’s game was ideally suited for the Masters. He’s a superb iron player, he has the ability to hit a lot of those towering iron shots, which I feel is so important there, but he also has great distance control with his irons and he drives the ball well. So, in my mind, if there’s one Major that suited Adam more than any other, I felt the Masters was definitely one that he was very capable of winning.
SCOTT: I finished second at the 2011 Masters, and that was just before Steve came on the bag. I think everything was going in the right direction. I don’t remember the actual ins and outs of everything that week, but things were all heading in a really good direction. But the big moment for me was after that tournament, at the next US Open, which was at Olympic. It was a real turning point for me, in my head, of like, Right, I’ve had enough, I’m going to make sure that a Major’s coming, after I left Olympic Club. Because my preparation was going well, we got off to a bad start, and I played quite solid the rest of the week, but my first few holes cost me and we made a real conscious effort after that to focus a lot more. It took me about a year for this newfound focus to really kick in at the level of a Major champion, or a regular contender in the Majors.
WILLIAMS: To be honest, that focus (and intensity) probably came when I worked for Greg Norman. I mean, we’d play a practice round and he’d be this jovial character and everything. But he’d stand on that first tee on Thursday, and the hairs on the back of his neck would stand up, and he’d be so serious for the next 72 holes. It was incredibly intense with him, and that’s what you’ve got to bring. One of the most unusual moments of my caddieing career – and I’ll never actually know why I did it – but in 2011, Tiger Woods was over practising on the range, warming up for his final round at Augusta. Adam was on the putting green. I left Tiger and walked over and gave Adam what I thought was a nice little confidence speech for that last round. And he went on to finish second, and that was something I don’t know where it came from.
SCOTT: Steve came over and he said, “Adam, nobody’s playing better than you, go out and play like the No.1 player in the world today.” It was a real rev up, and it really resonated with me. You could say, really for me, that gave me the confidence then to give Steve a call later that year to bring us together. But I kept that in mind all day that day, and I played incredibly well. I actually stood on the 71st hole with a one-shot lead. I parred the last two and lost by two shots, because Charl Schwartzel birdied the last four. But I thought that day, I shot 67, I did everything almost in my power to win that tournament from behind. But that was a big boost from Steve.
TURNING OPEN AGONY INTO AUGUSTA ECSTASY
SCOTT: The 2012 Open Championship is still a bit of a blur, to be honest. I mean, it was absolute heartbreak. And in the hours and days following, I honestly felt numb. I was probably shocked, but the only feeling I had was, I now know I can win a Major. That’s what it gave me. If this makes any sense at all, that championship was on my clubs at the end of the day, and I didn’t get it done, but I controlled the outcome. That’s the first time in my career I was in that position, and it didn’t work out. And it gave me the belief that, I know I am good enough to do this, and in the back of my mind, I figured I won’t let that happen again.
WILLIAMS: There was no question in my mind that when Adam completed that tournament, I knew the next time that he had an opportunity to win a Major, he would do it. I would be pretty willing to say if he had won the Open Championship at Lytham in 2012, he probably wouldn’t have won Augusta {the next year]. It’s so hard to win Majors, but when you actually get nine fingers on the claret jug, and then you let it slip out of your hands, I knew the next one he’d get. We understood about the importance of playing from the first hole to the 72nd hole, and Adam started that week in Lytham from the first hole. He started very, very well. He kept his emotions in check the whole way. He just made two poor swings down the stretch, and then the next time he had that opportunity at Augusta, he made the best swings he could make. He learned from that experience, and that’s what you’ve got to do in this game.
SCOTT: I felt there was no other outcome heading into the 2013 Masters. Obviously, it’s extreme confidence, and I wouldn’t put it as arrogance, but it was what was happening. I mean, I was playing the best golf of my life. I wasn’t seeing anybody out there on tour that I felt could play better than me at that moment. We were in a really good spot. We’d done all the right preparation and my game was sorted. It was just a matter of going out there and doing it. And when Steve and the team around me put me in a good frame of mind, then golf should be fun, easy and exciting. And you embrace that opportunity.
WILLIAMS: One of my little things that I like do is: every Major championship, I pick out a song and that’s the song I listen to. Adam, he has songs too. He likes to do something similar to that. But the song for the 2013 Masters was a Supertramp song called “Dreamer”. And the verse in the song that I like is, “Can you do something out of this world?” And that’s what I thought Adam could do. He could do something out of this world. I can recall vividly that time – I don’t have a great memory, but I can recall that. I’ll never forget another veteran caddie, Billy Foster, telling me during a practice round, “Steve, I’ve never, ever seen anyone play like that.” They were playing for a bit of money, and Adam just wiped these guys off the table. I don’t like to compare it, but from a caddieing point of view, it was similar to the US Open at Pebble Beach in 2000, where there was just no question that Tiger was going to win. I had the same feeling with Adam in 2013. It was like looking at Arnold Palmer when he was in his prime. When he stood over the ball, you knew he was going to hit a good shot. It’s just how close is it going to be to the pin. He learned from that Open Championship at Lytham, and he took that to Augusta. You just get a sense of calmness. Adam had that sense of calmness. He wasn’t panicking, he wasn’t rushing. He’d learned. He knew he was ready.
A STEADY START TO THE WEEK
SCOTT: First rounds count just as much as the last, but I remember I drove it in a bunker off the tee on Thursday and I hit it to about two feet out of the bunker to the back-left pin. We were playing with Sergio, actually, so I liked that. I tapped that in for a 3 and it was a nice way to start. That’s really the strongest memory I have of that round. I mean, there was lots of solid golf that week, so I would’ve imagined there wasn’t anything crazy going on that day. My memory of the second round was a slow start. I think I had three bogeys on the front nine, and we rallied back with three birdies on the back and got in with a 72. If there was any hiccup that week, it was obviously the front nine. I actually think the front nine is a really tough start to a Major championship. The first six or seven holes, it can go wrong very easily for you. I’ve experienced that a lot there. You’ve really got to be sharp right from the get-go and I made a few mistakes. All the work, whether it’s physical or mental, had to kick in for that back nine to rally back and not shoot myself out of it.
WILLIAMS: It was tough conditions, there’s no question about that. Even though Adam was over par early in the round, it wasn’t like he was falling down the leaderboard. I can distinctly remember walking from the back of the ninth green, through behind the 18th green and past the putting green to the 10th tee, and we both said, “If we can get it back to even-par here, we’re in great shape.” I remember saying to Adam, “There’s no problem for you to do that. You’re playing great, don’t even worry about the front nine.” He didn’t panic; he had some bogeys on the front nine, they weren’t poor shots or anything, it’s just conditions were extremely difficult that day. When you’re playing as well as he was at that particular point in time, it didn’t really mean that much that he was over par on the front nine because it was difficult conditions. You just don’t want to panic. Shooting 72 from being three-over at the turn is a huge kick of confidence. All the work that he had done just over that nine holes was going to set him up for the weekend. I was really confident on Friday night.
MOVING-DAY MOMENTUM
SCOTT: My strongest memory of Saturday is making a birdie on 17. I was just behind the hole, putting back up at it, and it just had the feeling of, You need to make this to get in the mix, just to feel a bit closer. It had a sense of a ‘moment’, that putt to me, and in it went, and it almost gave me the confidence like, Right, I can do that again tomorrow. Going to bed that night, I think it was a feeling of excitement, really – here we are in a good position. I wasn’t leading, I didn’t feel pressure other than myself to just play a good round of golf tomorrow. And I think I was in a much better head space, even though it was only nine months since [the collapse at Royal Lytham]. But there was a lot of water under the bridge since then and lessons learned, and I think I was just in a much better space to go out there on Sunday and play a really good round of golf – and a really good round of golf was going to win the Masters.
WILLIAMS: When you’re caddieing for a golfer, it doesn’t matter if it’s the first hole at Augusta or the first hole at the Bob Hope Classic, you’ve got to do the best job you can and give the best advice you can all the time. And Sunday morning was no different. We were in the house and having a good time. I always pop out a bit early to have a quick look at the holes. I like to have a look at the pin locations, about six holes. I always had this little track that I did, get a feel for what the wind is doing. You treat every round the same. One thing you can’t ever let the player do is let them see that you might be nervous. Fortunately, it’s something I don’t suffer from. But Adam was in good form. We all had a great sense. Brad Malone, his coach, was telling me he’s swinging the club great. The little things that they had worked on, there were no tweaks needed that week. If you can play in a tournament and all the coach does is stand back and observe – and that’s all Brad did that that week, was just observe – it’s a great sign that everything was in a good spot. Adam was ready for the moment. It was his time, and in sport when everything lines up, that was his time.
STARTING SUNDAY WITH A BOGEY
SCOTT: One of the great things that Steve introduced into my game was he didn’t give me any opportunity to have a whinge. Walking to the second tee, that bogey was already gone. It was in the past and we were moving on, picking a target down the second hole and Steve’s getting the wind and doing all that. We never dwelled on anything that happened behind us. He didn’t allow me to have a whinge about, God forbid I made a double-bogey, but we don’t want to talk about them. That was the attitude. That’s what I felt. And that’s something that I’ve definitely carried on ever since. I’m not dwelling on whatever mistake I made in the past. My game is in good shape. We move on and do our best going forward. It was good to hole a putt early in the round [Scott birdied the third hole]. Putting was the temperamental part of my game when Steve came on the bag. I worked really hard to get better at it. To make a putt early in the final round is a really big confidence booster when you are like that. Especially in the final round of the Masters, when you’re in contention, you want to see something go in, or it can be a really long day.
MAKING THE TURN WITH A GENUINE SHOT
SCOTT: There’s a lot of opportunity on the back nine, and [being three shots behind] is a good spot to be. I mean, there was a lot of golf to get to that point in a tournament – 63 holes and you’re in a spot where you can put a back nine on it and win the Masters. And with the opportunity, there are a lot of problems that can come on the back nine, so you never feel out of it if you’re in that spot.
WILLIAMS: Once you get past the 10th and 11th holes, a lot of opportunities present themselves from holes 12 to 17. If you’re playing and striking the ball as good as Adam was, you know it’s going to give you some opportunities. So, I was fully confident that he would be in the mix when we came to the last few holes.
WHEN LUCK IS ON YOUR SIDE
SCOTT: Freddy Couples got that famous break on 12 [in 1992], where it stayed up on the bank and he went on to win the Masters. I was surprised [my second shot on 13] came back, because I wasn’t expecting it on that green. I had a 7-iron in, and I didn’t think it was a particularly severe area on the green, but it looked like it spun back off the green and stayed up there. But it was a good break. Look, admittedly the shot was five yards right of my target, and it was going straight at the pin, but it just didn’t quite have enough carry. But somewhere in there, winning any tournament, I think you get a good break here and there, and that was certainly a good break at a good time for me. I vividly remember standing on the right side of 15 and [feeling like the tournament was slipping away] when Jason Day tapped in for birdie up ahead. I could tell by the cheer from the crowd, Right, that’s a birdie. I wasn’t afraid of having a look at a leaderboard on the back nine, that’s for sure, so I knew what was going on. It had started drizzling by then and that was a moment for me, I think. We both knew that if I was going to win this thing, it required a shot right there. There was nothing but a good shot coming up out of there if I wanted to be the first Aussie to win the Masters.
WILLIAMS: All you’re thinking about on a shot like [the second shot to 15] is it has to land on the right part of the green. It has to be the right club. It can’t be a club that you’re actually having to thrash to get there, because if it doesn’t come it goes in the water, but it can’t be a club that goes over the back. So there’s nothing to do with the tournament bar the fact that we need to get the right club in the hand. You don’t think about what the consequences are. It has to be the right club. And we chose the club there and he made a fantastic swing. The ball landed and it was just a perfect shot. You make the birdie, you carry on that momentum and go to the 16th. Adam knew the importance of that shot; he made another absolutely fantastic swing and that gives you the confidence over the closing holes.
SCOTT: It had an incredible follow-on effect for the next few holes.
A PUTT HEARD ALL AROUND THE WORLD
SCOTT: They’re all good shots at that point. I thought the 8-iron into 18 was great, because we were just in that first cut and we had this great conversation that we got right and landed it where we needed to be, right with the putt that you’ve seen a million times. I had [the same putt] two years earlier when I finished second and missed it just low of the hole. And it couldn’t have worked out better for a putt at that moment because I knew exactly where I needed to play it. That made it easy for Steve and I to read. And it comes down to, No matter what happens, I’m willing this thing in the hole. It’s making a move, and somehow if it’s a good move, or if it’s a bad move, it’s going in.
WILLIAMS: Obviously it was a very important putt to make because Adam was extremely excited, the most excited we’ve probably ever seen Adam at that point. But I was quick to tell him that, “Cabrera could very well birdie the last hole. Be ready for a playoff.” So, all that emotion and all that joy that he was experiencing walking from the 18th green to go and sign the scorecard, when we actually got to his golf bag, I sat the golf bag down. I was very quick to point out that, “You’ve got to prepare yourself for a playoff here.” Because in my mind I was thinking, “He’s pretty excited here. He’s got a right to be excited, but we could be playing a bit more golf.” So, he just needed to go sign the scorecard and then think about the playoff holes.
SCOTT: Steve prepared me for it, to be fair. I was literally still working on the card and there’s a small TV in [the scorer’s hut]. You could hear the roar [in reaction to Cabrera’s approach shot to 18] and then you look at the TV, and there it is. It’s basically tap-in distance, and my mind was completely prepared to play more holes. Without making it sound too simple, it’s like, OK, it’s down to two guys to win the Masters. We started with about 88, and it’s now two. The odds are getting better and better, and I was ready to play more. I was playing really well. I’d just holed a nice putt, and I was ready to do it all again. And Steve and I sat on a golf buggy ready to take us back down to 18 for probably five or seven minutes. There wasn’t anything said, there was no one around. I was just collecting my thoughts and feeling like I was in a good spot.
‘THE BEST SHOT OF ADAM SCOTT’S CAREER’
SCOTT: Steve was a weapon for me out there in that moment. He was fresh off Tiger Woods’ bag. He was intimidating for people on the tour, and that was a real weapon for me. Steve was a final piece of the Adam Scott puzzle, becoming a Major champion, there’s no doubt, and it fit in right at the right time. He did me the world of good.
WILLIAMS: Adam’s chipping and putting was right on song that week. On the first playoff hole, he chipped it up there and there was no question he was going to make the putt. He hadn’t missed one all week and I knew he’s not going to miss one there. So it was just now about preparing for the second playoff hole.
SCOTT: Steve has said my approach shot to 10 on the second playoff hole is the best shot I’ve hit in our time together. That’s a fair call. It is one of the greatest shots I’ve hit. It’s hard to describe exactly all the variables in that shot, but there were a lot – the right-to-left slope in the fairway, the back-left pin where you can’t be left of it. I needed to cut it to take a little yardage off because if I turned it over it was too much club to get back there, but it was time to get it back close to the hole. It felt like a ‘moment’ again. We’re not going to play more holes, realistically, I don’t think we could have played one more [as darkness set in].
WILLIAMS: Walking down the fairway, you just knew it was going to be the last hole. And you’re thinking, [if you don’t do something now] you’re going to bed and waking up on Monday morning and still be playing for the Masters. Now, Cabrera’s going to have a couple of cigarettes and a few beers and be totally relaxed about it. I’m not putting Adam down here, but I think Ángel would handle that period between Sunday night and Monday morning a bit differently to Adam. I think Adam would put a lot of thought into it. But as far as the shot went, it was just like it’s ‘the moment’. It was a 7-iron shot, but Adam and I knew it was going to be the last hole of the day, so let’s challenge this pin. You’re swinging good, you’ve not hit one bad shot all day long. Stand there with a 6-iron, three-quarter hold-off… I mean, it was the best swing I’ve ever seen Adam make. It was just poetry in motion. When he hit the shot, I didn’t even look, I just went up to get the divot. It was just absolutely perfect. Like Adam said, it’s a ‘moment’. He could have hit a 7-iron and put the ball in the same position as Cabrera had, and had the same kind of putt, but it was time to challenge that back pin and try to put the tournament away on that hole.
SCOTT: It was flush. And to think about taking a little bit off and doing something in that moment, it’s something I’d worked into my game over two years. I needed that shot. I like swinging at it hard. It doesn’t always get the best result under pressure. Sometimes it does, but that’s my go-to. I’d rather swing it hard, but I had to have a shot, and I put that shot really in play for the back-left pin at 16 at Augusta. But it worked out that here it was and when you’re playing that good, you’ve got to be able to play the shots you’ve got otherwise what’s the point in having them? Here it was, and Steve again, he’s a guy who’ll give you the confidence to play that shot. We were thinking the same way and when he delivers it, “You’ve got to hold this 6,” I believed it, and that was the beauty of how it worked out there.
FROM DOWN UNDER TO ON TOP OF THE WORLD
WILLIAMS: As we walk up from the second shot, that is a moment that instills confidence, not only right then, but for the rest of your life. Because in my mind that is the most important golf shot that Adam Scott has ever had to strike. And he hits it absolutely 100 percent to where he’s trying to hit it. As we are walking up to the green, I let Adam go ahead. Sometimes I’d walk with him and sometimes I wouldn’t. But I let him go ahead so he could just collect his emotions and what was about to occur. I knew that he would never have had that putt before. Just something told me he has never had that putt before. I have had the experience there with Greg Norman, who had that putt, and I just distinctly remember it broke more than it looked and that’s all I was thinking. Then when he got up there and he said, “Oh Steve, it’s dark. Have a look,” plus this, that and the other. I was so pleased, but if he didn’t ask me, I was going to have a look anyway, because I knew that he wouldn’t know how much that putt broke. And Adam read the putt, and he said, “It’s a cup out.” And I said, “That’s not even f–king close, it’s two-and-a-half cups with a bit of speed.” I don’t know if that was the right word to use at the time, but he stood there, he looked confident, he wasn’t gripping the putter tightly, he made a beautiful stroke, and the rest is history.
SCOTT: That’s how it went down. It really was. I stood over that putt and I knew this putt is actually to win the Masters. And I made a stroke that I felt showed I wanted to win. It went in the left half of the hole and I think it was probably going four or five feet by, it was a pretty fast putt. But I think to make that putt more times than not, it had to be a confident roll. If I dollied it down there, it could lip in, it could also break across the front. It could do lots of different things. But it was a putt that I had to hit with confidence. The whole thing came down to that. Early in the week, I knew it was my week, and on that putt, I knew it was my putt to win the Masters.
WILLIAMS: For Adam to be the first Australian to put on that green jacket, it was just… I get goosebumps now thinking about it. It was an absolute delight to see Adam do that and to see one of his dreams come true. As a professional golfer, you look at a guy like Adam, he’s worked hard on his game his whole life and he just wanted it so badly. To be able to be on the bag and see somebody fulfill a moment, a destiny, a dream, was very special.
SCOTT: It was overwhelming, honestly. You can see as I won, it was instantly emotional. And Steve and I had set out on a mission that took the better part of two years from when we started working together to get there. I think it was fulfilling for Steve and it was a dream come true for me. It had been quite a journey. I’d played a lot of Majors to that point with limited success. Of course, for an Australian, it was a huge moment and the Masters is really something special in the game of golf, but also in the entire sporting world. It goes beyond just a golf tournament, especially in Australia, and people still mention it to me all the time. They know where they were when Adam Scott won the Masters and it’s a funny thing, but it really did [resonate]. It was a big moment back at home and, like I said, it was really an incredible atmosphere and environment on that 10th hole in that playoff. It was dark, it was rainy, it was cloudy. It was never how I thought I’d win the Masters, with blue skies and the birds chirping at Augusta. But I thought it was, for me, even better. It was a real atmosphere down there. Maybe you could compare it to a Test match between Australia and New Zealand. There was a real atmosphere down there. The cheering was incredibly loud walking down there. Steve’s had it a million times, but Adam Scott hadn’t at that point. And the hairs do stand up on your arms when I go back and think about that.
WILLIAMS: This is probably a bit of an unusual thing to say, but it’s something that I’ve thought about a lot since I’ve caddied for Adam. I had the great opportunity to caddie for arguably the greatest player that’s ever played this game. Now, some people could say that, “OK, anybody could caddie for Tiger Woods; it didn’t matter who was carrying his bag,” and there’s some truth to that. When I went to caddie for Adam, he’s a player that had great talent and I actually wanted to validate myself as a caddie.
I felt I did a great job for Tiger, the best I could possibly do. I had the thought when Adam made that putt for the green jacket in 2013 and we were going back to the clubhouse, that I should just wrap my career up right then. It was a tremendous moment, and to have that opportunity to caddie for the first Australian [Masters winner], and someone that I cared about, because I knew how much talent Adam had. I was disappointed as a fan when I was caddieing for other players that he had not fulfilled his potential in winning a Major. So, to be part of that was just truly special and I’ll never ever forget it.
ADAM SCOTT, YES!
SCOTT: There’s a great aerial photo – it must have been taken from one of the towers – of the whole green, the 18th scene. My putt’s gone in, the fists are in the air, “Leish” (Marc Leishman) is in the background with a clenched fist and it was umbrellas all around. It was quite a scene. I remember it really clearly. The Masters produces these iconic moments, and it gives the opportunity for the announcers to deliver some iconic calls. Of course, Jack Nicklaus’ “Yes sir!” in ’86 is so memorable, but it’s really cool to have some good ones come out of my victory. Of course, everyone who wins has those special things, but the calls are fantastic. I was with Jim Nantz the other day and he was recalling what he said, and he said it was such a fun Masters to announce with the playoff and everything that had led up with me losing The Open to winning the Masters. I think my entire career there had been such a focus on: when is an Aussie going to win the Masters? I’d answered that question from when I showed up, which I had no business really talking about, to that week as well. And then Jason and I were close and some other guys had been close, and it had never gone an Aussie’s way. I was playing with Leish that day, and Leish was brilliant too. He had a chat with me in the 71st fairway, keeping it light, and we were talking about Australia and stuff like that. It was on my mind, I have to say. I didn’t know I was going to burst out with, “Come on, Aussie!” but that’s what came out. I grew up watching World Series Cricket as a kid with the “Come on, Aussie” song and I’d spent a lot of time around Lleyton Hewitt at that point in my career. Obviously he was an incredible tennis player, but I got to see behind the scenes in his work ethic even later in his career. I mean, this guy worked so hard, and we were at the same facility training and it was like, Oh, I can’t go home yet. Lleyton’s not gone home. So I’d putt more, or I’d chip more. I didn’t want him to see me go home before him, because he’ll think I’m not working hard. So, there were so many inspiring things out of that, and Australia generally, that was on my mind, and that “C’mon Aussie!” just burst out in the end, which is quite funny.
LIFE AS A GREEN JACKET
SCOTT: There’s quite a lot to do after you win the Masters. It was quite a late finish anyway, and then you throw in the presentations, ceremonies, interviews and dinners. The last thing we did that night, it was about 11pm, and they introduced me to the champion’s locker room and showed me my locker, which I share with Gary Player, which is great because I was able to play three times under his captaincy in the Presidents Cup. All my belongings had been magically shifted up from the downstairs locker room for me. It is an incredible feeling to know that you’re going upstairs to this mythical room that is full of history and champions. After being there for a few years, you realise how special it is when you see the elder champions that make an effort to come back and hang out all week at the Masters, and what it means to them to be there. I fully envisage myself being that guy in 40, 45 years from now… hanging on and wearing the green jacket the whole week there, even if I’m not hitting a shot.
• “Chasing Majors” is hosted and produced by Australian Golf Digest’s Evin Priest. Listen to the full series via Apple Podcasts or Spotify.
