Golf: Scott ready to be crowned No 1

Adam Scott and caddie Steve Williams played the pro-am yesterday ahead of the start of the Australian Open in Sydney today. Photo / Getty Images

Adam Scott will launch his Australian Open bid today, believing he is finally ready to conquer world golf.

Restored to the world's top 10 after a stellar season in America, refreshed from a surfing trip in Mexico and high on confidence after an 11th placing in Shanghai on Sunday, Scott will tee off at The Lakes as the Open's equal title favourite with Tiger Woods.

And all eyes will be on Scott and his controversial caddie, New Zealander Steve Williams, who made himself golf's biggest villain last week with his racially abusive outburst about his former employer Woods.

Little wonder the 31-year-old Scott has one eye on the Stonehaven Cup and the other on golf's top ranking.

"I'm not that far away," Australia's 2011 joint Masters runner-up said yesterday. "I know Luke [Donald] has a pretty good lead on No 2 at the moment. I'm sitting at No 8.

"With consistent play over the next year, I believe that No 1 is certainly attainable.

"It is the first time in my career as a professional that it has been realistic for me.

"For nine years, no one played at the level Tiger played at. He is slightly off, but he is on his way back it seems.

"It is a good time for me to take advantage of that and hopefully beat him to the punch."

He also needs to beat Jason Day to the punch, with Greg Norman this week putting the 23-year-old a fraction ahead of Scott in the race to No 1.

Day, who tied for second with Scott at the Masters in Augusta and also finished runner-up at the US Open, is Australia's top-ranked player at seventh in the standings.

There would be a certain symmetry, though, if Scott was to in fact beat Day, Woods and company to No 1.

Norman remains the only Australian man to have reached the summit and Scott credits the 56-year-old living legend for both inspiring his career and then turning it around.

"He was that charismatic guy who made the game so popular down here. Kids like myself stopped playing other sports to play golf," Scott said.

Then when Scott's career turned sour, after he plummeted from the dizzy heights of No 3 in the world to outside the top 50 two years ago, it was the Shark who resurrected it. Scott said being Norman's controversial captain's pick for the Internationals at the 2009 Presidents Cup in San Francisco, was undoubtedly the spark behind his resurgence.

"We all know how I felt about being picked," Scott said. "A couple of years ago that sent me on a path to turn my game around.

"Whether Greg intended that or not, he always said I was able to go and win points. I felt that I had to work really hard to do that because I was not playing great at the time.

"But it certainly put me back on that stage with world-class players. There is nowhere to hide from that in a Presidents Cup.

"You can't hide down the field in 65th, shooting 10 over.

"It was only a month and a half later that I won the Aussie Open. It was a great spur for me." AAP