World number two Adam Scott said Wednesday that winning the Australian Masters at Royal Melbourne this week would cap a breakthrough year in which he won his first major.
Australia's Adam Scott, pictured during the final round of the Australian PGA Championship at RACV Royal Pines in Gold Coast, on November 10, 2013
Scott is defending the title he won at Melbourne's Kingston Heath last year which acted as a springboard to becoming the first Australian to claim the US Masters at Augusta in April.
But the lure of winning at the famous Royal Melbourne club -- consistently rated among the world's greatest courses -- holds a special significance for him.
"People say you haven't achieved everything in golf unless you've won the Open at St Andrews," Scott told reporters.
"But for an Australian I think to win a tournament at Royal Melbourne is the same kind of thing and I'd love to do that."
Scott heads to Royal Melbourne, which will also stage the World Cup next week, in great form after winning the Australian PGA by four shots from American Rickie Fowler at Royal Pines on the Gold Coast last Sunday.
That added to his 2009 Australian Open win and Scott said that holding off Englishman Ian Poulter to win last year's Australian Masters had been an important career confidence-builder.
He had relinquished a four-shot lead with four holes to play at the British Open just four months before as he chased his first major title.
"It was big for the confidence and absolutely played a part in any success since then," he said of claiming his home Masters gold jacket.
Scott will be up against American world number eight Matt Kuchar, Fiji's former world number one Vijay Singh, Presidents Cup team member Brendon de Jonge of Zimbabwe and the 2006 US Open champion Geoff Ogilvy when the tournament begins on Thursday.
Kuchar is using the Australian Masters as preparation for the defence of the World Cup he won with Gary Woodland in 2011, and is returning to Royal Melbourne where he was a member of the victorious US team that won the 2011 Presidents Cup.
Kuchar, who has just one missed cut in the past two years on the US PGA Tour, also reveres Royal Melbourne.
"I don't know there's many other places that get me as excited," he said.
Singh, 50, despite now being eligible to compete as a senior on the Champions Tour, said his game was in good shape.
"My game is pretty good right now and I had a pretty ordinary season last and a couple before that because I had a couple of operations on my knee," he said.
"But this is the first year that I feel like I am able to compete again and my game is coming around," added the Fijian who last won on the US PGA Tour in 2008.
"I have not won in a few years and there are a lot of signs that I am playing well again so this is the first time in five, six years where I have gone back to a regular size putter and I am putting really well."