Starting the final round of the Abu Dhabi HSBC Championship inside the top-10, Scrivener lost ground on the front nine at Abu Dhabi Golf Club before catching fire on the run home.

The 31-year-old West Australian eagled the par-5 10th and added five more birdies to play the back nine in 29, matching Chris Di Marco’s low back nine score record and rising to a runner-up finish behind Englishman Tyrrell Hatton.

The second-place cheque of €710,175.21 ($A1.12m) was more than the total prize money Scrivener earned in each of his first four seasons on the European Tour and he credited a new association with performance coach guru Dave Alred for the windfall.

“He’s been a game changer for me,” Scrivener said of linking with Alred, who has worked with the likes of England rugby whiz Jonny Wilkinson, the British Lions, Springboks, the Brisbane Lions and golfers including Francesco Molinari, Luke Donald and Padraig Harrington.

“We sat down probably two months before Christmas at the end of my season last year, and he’s really helped me a lot and pushed me that bit extra to work harder.”

As for his stunning finish to his first tournament of the year to puts him second on the Race to Dubai standings, Scrivener struggled to explain it.

“I was in my own little world,” said Scrivener, who was tied for sixth at the Aphrodite Hills Cyprus Open last November.

“My caddie and I just kind of kept plodding away. Wasn’t a good start, made a few soft bogeys, and then just kind of stuck with it and yeah, 29 on the back, which was pretty nice.”

It was a strong start to the European Tour season for a number of Aussies with South Australian Wade Ormsby’s consistent week resulting in a tie for 12th with Lucas Herbert starting strongly before finishing tied for 25th.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Jason Scrivener (@jason.scrivener18)

There were significant milestones too for Davis who after a front nine of 6-under 30 at the PGA West Stadium Course was in contention late to record his breakthrough PGA TOUR win at The American Express in California.

A 22-foot birdie putt at the 15th put Davis within reach of the leaders and his tee shot at the par-5 16th providing the opportunity to go for the green in two. But his approach shot found the giant bunker left of the green and he was unable to get up-and-down, settling for par when his birdie putt from the fringe missed narrowly low and left.

He was unable to convert further birdie looks at the 17th and 18th holes as he finished three shots back of winner Si Woo Kim in third spot but the 2017 Australian Open champion believes it was another important step towards that first win on Tour.

“I’ve been trending in a good direction for a while now,” said Davis, who recorded two eagles in a round for the first time in his PGA TOUR career in round three, the second a holed 9-iron from 158 yards at the par-4 15th.

“I think for me to get over the line it’s just having four solid days in a row where I keep up every part of my game.

“I’m getting closer to it. It’s obviously great to keep seeing personal bests keep rolling through, so hopefully this leads to a little higher on the leaderboard in the near future.

“The learning curve here is just see what I did this weekend and keep that sort of stuff going and it should lead to something good.”

Davis’s previous best PGA TOUR finish was a tie for sixth at the Sanderson Farms Championship last October and he is projected to rise 64 spots to 38th in the FedEx Cup.

He wasn’t so sure about this at first …

… no sweat, @CamDavisGolf. 😃#QuickHits pic.twitter.com/UFixclbMK9

— PGA TOUR (@PGATOUR) January 24, 2021

US PGA Tour
The American Express
PGA West (Stadium Cse), La Quinta, California
3             Cameron Davis   68-70-66-64—268            $US462,300
T21        Matt Jones          70-68-67-72—277            $58,625
T40        Rhein Gibson      70-70-69-71—280            $25,125
MC         Tim Wilkinson     70-71—141
MC         Danny Lee           70-72—142
MC         Aaron Baddeley 68-75—143
MC         Cameron Percy  73-71—144
MC         John Senden       81-74—155

European Tour
Abu Dhabi HSBC Championship
Abu Dhabi GC, Abu Dhabi, UAE
2             Jason Scrivener  67-70-71-66—274            €710,175
T12        Wade Ormsby    69-70-70-71—280            €105,430
T25        Lucas Herbert     68-68-74-73—283            €59,333
T57        Scott Hend          71-72-74-72—289            €20,650
MC         Ryan Fox              73-71—144
MC         Min Woo Lee      71-73—144