Adam Scott continued his freefall from grace this morning when he shot a 10-over-par 82 in the opening round of the US PGA championship, to be 152nd in a field of 155.

With his woeful start to the year's fourth major, which contained five straight bogeys in the middle of his round, Scott is now on target for his ninth missed cut from his last 13 starts. That is a serious form slump whichever way you cut and dice it, and this from a man who was ranked No.3 in the world only two-and-a-bit years ago. He is now listed at No.46.

I hate to raise the spectre of Ian Baker-Finch, whose career peaked with his British Open triumph in 1991 then hit bedrock six years later when he shot an opening-round 92 in the same championship, but Scott's past five months have echoes of the Baker-Finch demise. He's not in the IBF league yet, but showing the same worrying signs.

The Queenslander started the year with such promise, too, finishing 18th in the season-opening Mercedez Championships followed up by a second placing at the Sony Open in Hawaii, where he closed with a final-round 64. Since then, though it has been pretty much unalloyed misery, racking up six missed cuts in a row through April and May, and now nine in total. He has collected just four cheques since March, with a best finish of fourth in the Scottish Open.

The stats tell the story: he ranks 172nd in driving accuracy, 182nd in putting average and 186th in putts per round. I don't care how good your iron play is, when you're constantly driving into trouble and then three-putting, you are never going to be able to compete with the world's best.

Scott's putting has always been his undoing, even when he burst onto the scene as a child prodigy almost a decade ago. Some sages said then: if you can't putt at the age of 20, you sure as hell aint going to be able to putt when you're 30. And so it has proved to be.

He recently turned to Baker-Finch, whose putting talent never deserted him even in his darkest days, for some tips with the flat stick. On the strength of today's effort, he was out there emulating IBF's long game, not his short one.

Away from the course, Scott's private life has made him a glossy mag celeb of sorts: he briefly dated actress Kate Hudson, and is now squiring Serbian tennis star Ana Ivanovic.

But his supporters will be hoping he soon starts to make headlines for performances on the course, rather than the swank nightclubs of Europe.