US Open: Champion’s battle to reach his destiny

Yet just two months later, Scott’s good friend and fellow 32-year-old Justin Rose – they were born just 14 days apart – joined him as a first-time major champion with a superb victory in the US Open at Merion.

Scott’s lowest point had come just nine months before his victory at Augusta when he had a four-shot lead with four holes to play in the Open Championship at Lytham, bogeyed them all and lost to Ernie Els. Rose’s lowest point had come 14 years earlier, when he turned professional the day after finishing fourth in the 1998 Open Championship at Birkdale as a 17-year-old amateur – and then missed the cut in his first 21 tournaments in the paid ranks.

He eventually found his feet and in 2002 won his first event in his native Johannesburg and added the British Masters in June, but those highs were followed by another crushing low in September when his father Ken - a massive influence on his career - died following a long battle with leukaemia. Five years later, Rose was one shot behind eventual winner Zach Johnson in the final round of the 2007 US Masters only to double-bogey the 17th, but had the consolation of two wins in Europe, including the final event of the season in a play-off, to top the Order of Merit,

Another five years on came the most significant win of his career to that point, the WGC Cadillac Championship at Doral in March 2012, while later that year – 14 years after Birkdale – he secured his best finish in a major with a share of third in the US PGA Championship.

His upward trajectory reached its pinnacle with Sunday night’s emotional victory. “My dad always believed that I was capable of this,” he said. “When he was close to passing away, he told my mom, ‘Don’t worry, Justin will be okay. He’ll know what to do.’”