LYTHAM ST. ANNES, England — Thirteen seconds elapsed from the moment Adam Scott anchored the broomstick-length putter to his sternum and watched the 7-foot par putt slide by on the left side of the cup at No. 18, causing his knees to buckle.
The major championship trophy that Scott seemed close to holding was firmly in Ernie Els’ grasp instead. The Aussie’s eyes were still dry, but glassy.
Inside the media center, Scott absent-mindedly drummed his fingertips on the tabletop in front of him. He stared somewhere off in the distance.
“It’s tough. You don’t want to sit here and have to ... I can’t justify anything that I’ve done out there. I didn’t finish the tournament well today. But next time, I’m sure there will be a next time,” Scott said.
Scott bogeyed the last four holes, compounding each mistake with another unrelated one - a blown sand save at 15, a missed 3-footer at 16, a wayward approach at 17, and finally, an errant drive at the last.
That sequence left his playing partner, Graeme McDowell, trying several times to avert his gaze.
“I was watching out of the corner of my eye,” McDowell said. “I wouldn’t say I had given up and was intent on what Adam was doing ... but it’s hard to watch. It’s hard to watch a guy do that.”
McDowell couldn’t turn away.
“The putt on 16 was huge for him to miss that,” the Northern Irishman said. “He hit a great drive down the middle of 17, and half of England right of that pin, and he missed it left. Eighteen is a tough tee shot, let’s be honest. So he’s going to be extremely heartbroken and disappointed, but he’s a great, great, great player, and that’s what I tried to convey to him on the last green.
“Like I say, it felt like a futile exercise trying to say anything to him. I’m sure he’s going to be unbelievably disappointed.”
The short putt at the 16th might have been the most unsettling to those watching. But Scott chose the 6-iron from 178 yards out on the 17th fairway as the one he most wanted back. It landed short of the green in waist-high grass, and he failed to convert that up-and-down.
“I felt surprisingly calm and I felt like I had everything under control. When I was over the ball, I felt like I was going to hit a good shot, and that was the way I played all week,” Scott said. “But I didn’t make a good swing on that one,” Scott said quietly.
Sports, Pages 18 on 07/23/2012