By Frank Pingue
OAKMONT, Pennsylvania (Reuters) -Adam Scott believes he needs another major title to boost his World Golf Hall of Fame credentials and while the Australian was in the hunt during Sunday’s final round at the U.S. Open his challenge faded as conditions became tougher in heavy rain.
The 2013 Masters champion would have broken the record for the longest time between a player winning his first and second majors but signed off with a nine-over-par 79 that dropped him into a share of 12th on six over for the tournament, seven shots behind winner J.J. Spaun.
A 96-minute suspension in play caused by rain that left pools of water on the putting surfaces and fairways made the already treacherous Oakmont layout even tougher.
“It was bad conditions. No one really had a good score,” said Scott, who has 32 worldwide wins, including 14 on the PGA Tour. “Once the fairways were soaked, it was very hard controlling the golf ball.”
The 44-year-old Scott, playing in his 96th consecutive major, started the day as the only player from the starting field of 156 golfers with three rounds of par or better.
Two over on the day when play was suspended, Scott bogeyed his first hole after the restart, the par-three eighth, but still reached the turn one shot off the lead.
Scott then found himself in a five-way share of the lead early on the back nine as conditions saw positions change rapidly on the leadeboard, but his game then started to unravel.
“I felt better before the rain delay, that’s for sure,” said Scott. “I went back out feeling okay, but then I left every kind of tee shot to the right coming in, and that was impossible to recover from almost.”
Scott’s slide started at the par-four 11th where he sent his approach into the tall grass behind the green and made bogey. He made another at 14 where his shot from a bunker failed to find the fairway.
He had a birdie putt from 72 feet at the 15th that would have given him another share of the lead but three-putted from there for bogey and followed that with a double-bogey at 16 after finding the thick rough off the tee.
Scott capped his round with another bogey and conceded he did not handle the conditions well.
“Unfortunately, I think the course just couldn’t take much more water really,” said Scott. “I didn’t adapt to those conditions well enough.”
(Reporting by Frank Pingue; Editing by Peter Rutherford)
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