Adam Scott shows poise of champion

For months, Adam Scott has looked forward to all the perks that come with a green jacket. On Thursday, he realized the best one: confidence.

Scott walked to the first tee with the self-belief that only Mas­ters Tournament champions can understand. He walked off the 18th green with a 69 that portends ominously for anyone hoping to beat him.

“There’s no doubt winning the Masters last year had me a little more comfortable on the first tee than I’ve ever been in the past,” Scott said. “Because I didn’t have the legs shaking and nerves jangling for six or seven holes like usual.”

Scott said the first few holes of the Masters are typically the most nerve-racking he has ever experienced. Anticipation and atmosphere often conspire to make fools of the best players.

“It’s hard to calm down after you get going,” he said. “Even if you get off to a good start, it’s hard to calm down, let alone a bad start. But having won last year I think in some ways has taken a little pressure off me as I teed up today. I kind of felt like, ‘What’s the worst that can happen? I’m still going to be a Masters champion.’ ”

With that kind of attitude, Scott proceeded to knock his opening approach within 2 feet for a birdie. Birdies at Nos. 6, 8 and 10 had him 4-under and cruising so easily that 19-year-old amateur Mat­thew Fitzpatrick thought Scott had every shot “on a piece of string.”

The galleries greeted Scott at every tee and green as if it were a coronation walk.

“The best one, the memory that will stick with me forever today, was walking up to the 12th tee and everyone getting out of their seats as I approached there,” Scott said. “It was great. But then I went and hit it in the water.”

With the wind, pins and green speeds as they were Thursday, nobody was getting off the course unscathed. Scott’s 9-iron at the 12th rolled back into the water, the first time in 45 career rounds that he has ever hit it into Rae’s Creek.

“I just lost a little focus on that shot and didn’t commit fully to it, and you paid a price on that one,” Scott said of the resulting double bogey. “It was a weak shot. Like I said, the only weak shot I hit, and it’s actually the first time I think I’ve ever hit it in that creek.”

Instead of letting it rattle him, Scott just brushed it off and moved on – yet another perk of Augusta’s lifetime exemption.

“There is a certain sense of freedom in the way you play, I think, and no doubt you can see that in the way Phil (Mick­elson)’s played around here since breaking through,” Scott said.

Undeterred by his double, Scott went for the 13th and 15th greens in two, hitting both. He grudgingly settled for pars after three-putts, with birdie in between at No. 14.

“I think the par-5s are a big key for me here, and I didn’t take advantage of them today and shot 69, so that’s a good indication of the quality of my play today,” he said.

First rounds haven’t always been Scott’s strong suit at Augusta. His scoring average in 12 previous Masters starts was 73. Only twice before has he broken 70 on Thursday, with 69s in 2010 and last year. The past six Masters champs all broke 70 in the first round, but the last defending champ to do it was Vijay Singh in 2001.

So Scott was relieved to roll in a 7-foot par save on the 18th.

“I think I felt like I played good enough to shoot in the 60s today, so that was a nice way to end the day and not walk off shooting 70,” he said.

Scott, 33, is too polite and proper to depict his confidence as swagger. But he returned to Augusta with the assured sense of a man playing with house money. Com­parisons to Mickelson are appropriate, because the left-hander has played Augusta better than anyone since breaking through a decade ago at age 33.

“I hope I get on one of those runs where I’m one of the guys who kind of develops an affinity for the golf course like Phil Mickelson has and many other guys have as well over the years,” Scott said. “I feel the course sets up well for me, and while it’s like this, I’ve got to take advantage of it.”

Little has distracted him despite the extra duties of playing host to the Champions Din­ner on Tuesday and attending a banquet Wednesday to be honored as the Golf Wri­ters Association of Amer­i­ca’s Player of the Year.

The only brief discomfort was when a couple of his fellow champions asked whether he had picked his song for the dinner.

“Really?” Scott thought. “I may be a little gullible. That was pretty funny.”

Perhaps Killing Them Soft­ly would have worked with the way he’s playing.

“Getting off to a good start in a major is huge, because I think they are the hardest tournaments to kind of chase,” he said. “Birdies aren’t that easy to come by usually at majors, and if you’re six back, five back, 10 back after the first round, it’s a hard three days in front of you to peg it back. You almost have to play flawless.”

Scott is only one back of Bill Haas and just needs to keep playing the same way: like a Masters champion.