Twenty years ago this November, the PGA Tour’s Tour Championship was contested in early November. It was still held at East Lake Golf Club, but it was a time before the FedEx Cup, before the professional golf world as we know it began to take shape. A time before Brian Rolapp arrived and worked to reshape the PGA Tour’s postseason model from the FedEx Cup to a new iteration that will begin in 2028. That week, as the PGA Tour’s 30 best players were playing in Atlanta, Tom Brady threw four interceptions in a Sunday Night Football loss to Peyton Manning and the Indianapolis Colts. Brady would go on to play 16 more seasons, win four more Super Bowls and retire in 2022.
On that Sunday in 2006 at East Lake, Adam Scott defeated Jim Furyk to win the Tour Championship. A lot has changed about golf and the world since that November in 2006. Change has been a constant force in pro golf ever since Tiger Woods arrived, forever altering the sport. The money grows, the sponsors and tournaments and schedules shift and the players get younger and better.
But as change continues to mold and shape the pro golf world, Adam Scott has remained a timeless pro— one who is still grinding to be a top player in the world, still believing that he can compete and beat the world’s best, still believing he has more to achieve after a Hall of Fame career.
The 46-year-old Australian has seen the game change. He sees it as “deeper” and more competitive than it used to be. Where young players used to have to work their way to PGA Tour breakthroughs, the last decade has seen young talent arrive and immediately make a splash, starting with Jordan Spieth.
“The learning curve is a lot quicker,” Scott said after opening the 2026 Tour Championship with a 66 on Thursday. “I think they learn in college now. I think I came out, I didn’t know a lot. I didn’t learn a lot in college, in the classroom or on the golf course. Then there was like this apprenticeship, you served as a Tour pro, and it was at least five years before you really knew how to play. You’ve just seen over the last 10 to 15 years, from Jordan Spieth onwards, guys coming out of college so prepared.
“I’d say it’s much harder, and I probably took for granted those years where I was kind of cruising through out here. I feel like the moment I relax, I just plummet down the rankings and leaderboards and everything. There’s no letting up out here.”
That 2006 Tour Championship was Scott’s fourth career win on the PGA Tour. He won in 2007, 2008, 2010 and 2011 before winning the 2013 Masters, his lone major title. He has only won three times since then, the latest coming at the 2020 Genesis Invitational, but his game has rarely dipped save for the expected ebb and flow of a long career. He played in his 100th consecutive major championship at the U.S. Open this year and made the Tour Championship again after missing out in 2023 and 2025.
Scott has been hunting for that next PGA Tour win since that 2020 title at Riviera Country Club. He lost in a playoff at the 2021 Wyndham Championship, had three top-fives in 2022, two runner-ups in 2024 and entered Sunday with a chance to win the 2025 U.S. Open.
Adam Scott continues to knock on the door. He still has goals to achieve and dreams to capture. He remains one of the best ball-strikers on the planet and believes he has a lot of good golf still in front of him, despite being “the old guy” now.
One of those goals will be right in front of him on Sunday at East Lake. After opening with a first-round 66, Scott followed it with 67 and a Saturday 65 to boost him to 12 under, three shots off the 54-hole lead held by Viktor Hovland.
“I’d love to get back and win a tournament. Any tournament would do. This one I’m playing in this week would be fantastic,” Scott said on Thursday.
“To be a FedEx Cup champion is really one of those career milestones that I’d like to achieve still. I know time is really not on my side for that, but I’m off to a good start.”
On Sunday, Scott will try to become the oldest winner of the Tour Championship in history, beating the mark set by 43-year-old Mark McCumber in 1994. Next year will be the final iteration of the FedEx Cup. Then, in 2028, the PGA Tour will shift to a reimagined postseason that will end with two weeks of match play.
Adam Scott plans to still be in the mix then too, hopefully with another Tour Championship title to his name if he can execute on Sunday the same way he did 20 years ago. That day, the winner’s check was $1.17 million. On Sunday, should he best a packed leaderboard of golf’s best, he’ll take home a $10 million prize along with his 15th PGA Tour win and proof that while everything around the game is changing, some things — very few things — do stay the same.
