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“He didn’t know him from Adam,” is a comment becoming increasingly common in COVID-19’s year of abandoned sport, as high-profile athletes have time to reach out to the less fortunate.

In this story, it’s an Adam extending the kindness to a guy who considers Adam his best mate. Confused? Well, so is 76-year-old Ross Campbell, who is suffering from seven brain tumours and believes 39-year-old professional golfer Adam Scott is his best mate.

In fact, although wheelchair bound, Ross thinks he plays regular golf games with Adam, exchanges tips and joins him in beers at the Riverside Oaks club house.

Ross and his wife, Pam, lived at Riverside Oaks for eight years but, as his conditioned worsened, they moved to their son’s 32 acre property near Dural. Pam says: “Ross thinks a shed on the property is the Riverside Oaks club house and he talks about Adam all the time, waiting for Adam’s call to play a round of golf.”

So, as the cancer and confusion advanced, daughter Leigh made contact with Adam when he was briefly in Queensland.

Adam readily agreed to phone Ross and, although initially surprised by Ross’s immediate familiarity, quickly settled in for a chat.

“You didn’t need me for the game yesterday?” asked Ross, a question which Adam gently deflected.

Pam says: “I’m standing in the background crying and happy as they chatted away. They talked golf and Ross mentioned that he gets very wobbly in the legs when he goes out to play.

“He’s in a wheelchair and can hardly stand up but Adam must have sensed this and said he gets wobbly in his legs, too.”

For anyone who has ever struck a golf ball and is between 55 and 105 years old, Jack Nicklaus is a small part of our lives. He is the Olden Bear, the one who made us suck in our beer guts, when, in 1986 at age 46, he won his final major at the Masters.

But Ross Campbell has a younger, more modern hero.

“He’s always loved Adam Scott,” says Pam, “particularly because he is Australian.

“But the brain and lung cancers have caused him to believe they play regularly together.

“Adam sent him a video, showing him winning his trophy at the Masters in 2013.”

For avid golf fans, watching the Masters on TV is like dreaming in green but Ross plays weekly with his hero in vivid colour.

The Masters may have morphed from being the most important golf tournament in the world to the most self-important, yet none of this has rubbed off on Scott.

His colleagues, when playing tournaments, may possess the type of frozen expression and bloodless smile you associate with a casino croupier, but Ross’s imaginary golf partner tells jokes and has little side bets around the course.

Scott’s win in February at the Genesis Invitational at the Riviera Club, Pacific Palisades was his first victory on the PGA Tour in nearly four years.

Yet it would seem that as he grows more desperate on the inside, he has become more generous on the outside.

Says Pam: “Many high profile athletes must get so many requests to put themselves out, yet Adam responded to my daughter’s request straight away.

“The video he sent also shows him practising putting and Ross can watch it any time he feels inclined.”

What about those side bets around the course? “Ross thinks the boys over at the club house owe him $55,000,” Pam says. “But in his mind Adam doesn’t owe him anything.”

With the phone call over, Pam thought she would spin out the joy, saying, “What about Adam Scott ringing you?”

Ross answered in his dismissive way: “What are you talking about? Of course Adam would call. He wants a game. He’s here at Riverside Oaks.”

At a time the COVID-19 pandemic forces people to isolate from friends, many are, paradoxically, searching for long lost ones.

In the case of Adam Scott, with the PGA Tour suspended, he quickly reacted to a call from someone he had never met, a request from a daughter seeking a way to bring joy to her seriously ill father.

As Pam says, “It’s a story to warm the cockles of your heart in these troubled times.”

Roy Masters / Apr 29, 2020 / Golf

No cameras, no trophies, but Adam Scott just won the lockdown's act of kindness award

In his dreams, a seriously ill Sydney man, Ross Campbell, has a round of golf regularly with the 2013 Masters champion Adam Scott. So Mr Campbell was delighted to find Scott on the other end of the phone.

The Silver Fern

Awesome stuff you see on the internet

No cameras, no trophies, but Adam Scott just won the lockdown's act of kindness award