Adam Scott was long ago labelled with the ‘can't miss' tag but that was in reference to long-term career success. What those who regarded him as the next superstar failed to see was that his putter had a whole lot more ‘can't make' than ‘can't miss' about it.

He had the beautiful looking swing, with all the attendant power, and he won a number of big events all around the world including The Players Championship - where in defence of his putter he holed a 10-footer at the last hole to win.

The big black mark against his career was his almost complete failure to threaten in a major championship. Always the critics pointed to the putter but it can't have always been to blame and last year he endured a horrible season that included long runs of missed cuts - six in a row through March, April and May - and too many lowly finishes for someone of his talent.

Then when it was least expected he came home and headed to the New South Wales club where he won The Australian Open.

That had to be some sort of encouragement and this year in America he has shown signs of better golf - and free weekends have become the exception rather than the rule.

Scott had not threatened to win until this week in Texas where he played a fantastic final 36-hole Sunday - Friday had been washed out by a downpour - in 66 and 67 to beat Swede Freddie Jacobsen by a shot.

During his impressive run on the final nine, the television flashed up the amazing statistic that Scott had holed 50 out of 50 putts from inside six feet. Of course some of those are from inside a few inches but nonetheless it showed something positive was happening with the putter.

Then he came to the final hole, a long par five, where he left himself with a nine iron for his third shot. He flew it long and into the back bunker and from a horrible plugged lie he stabbed it out to four feet. Better still it was right under the hole leaving him with a relatively simple straightforward putt to shut out the challengers behind.

He hit an awful putt that completely missed the hole. But it is easy to be critical and the most critical have probably never hit a putt under any real pressure. Even the simplest things are difficult when your hands are shaking and only the surest of minds and strokes are safe bets under that sort of pressure.

Scott has been to see putting master Dave Stockton who forged a great career that included two USPGA championships by hitting 11 greens a round and having 27 putts. Any man with that skill and a way of passing on the knowledge of how he did it was someone who could help a Scott - a man who was making a career out of hitting 14 greens a round and having 31 putts.

For Scott to truly challenge in the big events he needs to make more putts and if Stockton has passed on something that works in the longer term then Scott has a real chance of winning something really significant.

Not unnoticed was the finish of the third placegetter, Aaron Baddeley. He was another ‘can't miss' player but his problem was the opposite of Scott's. His putter kept him on the tour as he searched for the ‘next level' of ball striking that would take him to the top of the game.

He went searching at the door of David Leadbetter and then the guys teaching the ‘stack and tilt' method but neither came to anything much and he is now back with his schoolboy teacher Dale Lynch.

His swing looks more like it did when he won The Australian Open as a nineteen-year old - and that can be no bad thing because there were few more impressive young players anywhere in the world.

With Woods' game now in a state of turmoil there is a chance for Baddeley, Scott, Robert Allenby and Geoff Ogilvy to really make something of the northern summer.