Adam Scott says he’s at a point in his career where both the DP World Tour and national opens are becoming nostalgic. It’s why he’s in the field at this week’s Irish Open at the K Club following a 21-year absence.
The 2013 Masters winner said he’d love to turn around his 2023 campaign with two good results on the DP World Tour, starting at this week’s Irish Open before, heading home for the Australian summer of golf later this year.
Scott had a below-average PGA Tour season in which he did not make the FedEx Cup playoffs for the first time since the finals series was created in 2007.
Now, the former world No.1 turns his attention to the Irish Open at the K Club, having last teed up in the Emerald Isle’s national championship in 2001. Back then, Scott tied sixth behind winner Colin Montgomerie at Fota Island Resort in Cork.
“It’s nice to come back,” he told Australian Golf Digest on Wednesday. “I landed in Ireland last night and on the course today, I got such a warm welcome here. Everyone’s so happy to see you.
“It’s been a long time since I played the Irish open. I’m not going to say this will be the last time; I’m going to play it again some day but it gets to that point in your career where you get to reminisce a little bit.
“I have a lot of great memories of early days in my career playing the European Tour, and I have focused on America for the past 10 or 12 years. Nowadays, I get to kind of play around a little bit more with my schedule, and I enjoy that.
“It’s a national open this week, so I’d love to love to win it. I was actually close [in Ireland] 20 million years ago [laughs]. Generally, my game has been pretty close to good this year. So I’d like to kind of finish the year off and get myself to where I think I should be.”
Scott joins fellow Australians Min Woo Lee and Jason Scrivener in the field at the K Club, while New Zealanders Ryan Fox and Daniel Hiller are also playing.
After the Irish Open, Scott will also tee up at the DP World Tour’s flagship event, the BMW Championship at Wentworth, next week. His schedule then takes him to Japan for two tournaments, before a November return to Australia for the PGA at Brisbane’s Royal Queensland and the Open at The Lakes and The Australian in Sydney.
