No 1 shouldn't be easy: Scott

The vagaries, if not absurdities, of golf's ranking system mean that Adam Scott would have been assured of rising above the world No1, Tiger Woods, if the Australian did not play in the Players Championship, which started in Ponte Vedra, Florida, yesterday.

But the Australian does not want to take the back door into immortality and become the 17th professional to scale the summit since the system's inception 28 years ago.

In fact, he does not even wish to think of the minimum he requires on the famous Stadium Course at Sawgrass, which could be as little as a place inside the top 16.

"I want to stamp my foot down as a big-time player," Scott said.

"And anyway, there are three other players here who have a chance of becoming world No1. I can't take for granted where any of them will come. Listen, I would love to win this golf tournament and ascend to No1 that way and not just look for a position to do so."

The game could only benefit if this four-horse race goes all the way to the wire. It would be apt if a season which has so far been commanded by the supposedly lesser men is suddenly transformed by the supposedly better men staging an epic fight to replace the sidelined Woods as The Man.

The others with the honour in their sights are Swede Henrik Stenson (who needs at least a top-six finish), and Americans Bubba Watson (outright second) and Matt Kuchar (win). All boast merit, all boast an intriguing narrative. Yet perhaps Scott's tale is the most alluring, especially at this venue.

It is 10 years since Scott became the youngest winner of the PGA Tour's flagship event. His victory did not come without its drama; after negotiating the notorious island green 17th, the then 23-year-old hooked a six iron into the water on the 18th and had to get up and down to win.

Yet he survived and the Queenslander with the film-star looks seemed certain to graduate to challenge Woods for the No1 spot.

Despite prevailing six more times in the next two years - a haul which carried him to No3 in the world - Scott went missing in the events which truly mattered.

He now knows why.

"I didn't make the most out of winning this tournament at a young age," Scott said.

"Being inexperienced and naïve worked against me.

"I didn't realise that to keep going and move up to that next level how hard I would have to work. You just think it's all going to keep coming along - as everything had to that point in my career. Yeah, I kept winning and playing well. But I never really performed like that in another big event for quite a while."

Try seven years - a period in which he fell out of the world's top 50 - until he contended at The Masters of 2011 before finishing runner-up to Charl Schwartzel.

The following year came his final four-hole collapse to hand The Open to Ernie Els. And then, last year, he finally broke through at Augusta, winning his country its first green jacket.

Scott made a promise to himself at that moment, a vow he is still desperate to keep.

"I want to build on what I did last year at the Masters.

"I don't want 2013 to be a dream year and it all to go downhill from there."