OAKMONT, Pa. — Earlier in U.S. Open week Adam Scott, one month from his 45th birthday (and now one shot off the lead at Oakmont), was asked how he views his “major championship window”. He paused to consider the question, as he tends to, then offered one word in response.
“Ajar,” he said with a smile.
If you’ve watched Scott give interviews over the years you can probably picture what he looked like as he said it, how he sounded. You can appreciate just how very Adam Scott it was. Pithy. Earnest. Determined.
But then he volunteered more, declared his intentions, allowed himself to dream.
“I’ve put together a nice career, but I think another major would really go a long way in fulfilling my own self, when it’s all said and done,” he said. It’s a courageous thing to say, that a win would fulfill your own self. Because what happens if that win never comes? But Scott knows what he wants and he’s not afraid to say so.
“This is all I’m really playing for, are these big events,” he added.
That was Friday, after back-to-back rounds of even par. On Saturday, as Scott stacked up back-nine birdies and charged towards the top of the U.S. Open leaderboard, as it became clear that the crowds on site had picked their favorite, ESPN writer Paolo Uggetti reminded me one of the great genres of sports stories and of sportswriting: The Old Guy Has Still Got It.
It’s a phrase coined, as far as I can tell, by Ringer writer Bryan Curtis. He detailed the theory in a 2021 piece in which he describes “Old Guy Has Still Got It” stories as “tales of a Savvy Veteran outdueling Father Time” or, my personal favorite, “having a late-inning rally”. The good stuff.
And folks, it feels like Adam Scott is having a late-inning rally. On Saturday he shot even par on the front nine and birdied 13, 14, 17 coming home; the crowd found its favorite, roaring him home as he two-putted the 18th for par and 67, tying the low round of the day. Now he heads to Sunday one shot back, T2, and he’ll play in the final pairing with leader Sam Burns.
On the one hand, Scott doesn’t seem like an “Old Guy”. He’s in tremendous shape and hits the ball plenty far and his swing is still used as the sport’s prototype for excellence. He’s always had a timeless quality, in golf swing and comportment; he seemed older when he was young and seems younger now that he is, by a professional athlete’s timeline, old. On the other hand, Curtis’ original “Old Guy” subject was 36-year-old NBA star Chris Paul. Perhaps 36 in NBA years converts to 44 in pro golf years. Either way, Scott knows that opportunities like he’ll have on Sunday only come around so often.
“I really haven’t been in this kind of position for five or six years, or feeling like I’m that player. But that’s what I’m always working towards,” he said on Saturday. He had five consecutive top-20 finishes in 2018-19, including a third at the 2018 PGA Championship. But he hasn’t been that close since. “If I were to come away with it tomorrow, it would be a hell of a round of golf,” he said. “And an exclamation point on my career.”
That phrase “exclamation point” nods to a recurring feature of the Old Guy genre; one reason these stories are so fun to write about and to root for is because they’re satisfying final chapters in a player’s career. Tom Brady winning a Super Bowl in Tampa Bay is one such example, while Curtis references Carmelo Anthony as a counterexample — someone whose career never got its exclamation point and ended in some sort of imperfect limbo. That’s how it goes for most athletes, even the very good ones.
Perhaps my favorite part of Curtis’ Old Guy observations is what he writes at the end. “When an older athlete becomes the lead story, older writers suddenly find they have an advantage,” he says. “When a sportswriter says ‘the old guy has still got it,’ he’s trying to convince you that he does, too.”
As I returned to the media center on Saturday night, Golf Channel’s “Live From” was on, a show full of guys who still have it and like the idea that Scott does, too. I tuned in as they ticked through his Saturday highlights and then turned to Jaime Diaz, a respected golf writer for decades, to lend his perspective.
“It’s so gratifying at 44, almost 45 years old to see [Scott] playing this well,” Diaz said. “He’s had a lot of heartbreak in his career but he’s deceptively a very gritty guy.”
Brandel Chamblee built on that idea of Scott’s grit and provided evidence of his resilience from two decades back, at the 2004 Players Championship. Scott hit his approach shot at No. 18 into the water but calmly collected himself en route to an iconic win. Chamblee also brought up Scott’s heartbreak at the 2012 Open, when he bogeyed the final four holes to lose. But Scott redeemed himself just two majors later when he won a green jacket in 2013.
“He goes about things the right way. I mean, absolutely the right way,” Chamblee added. That’s the general sentiment around Scott — classy is used as a common descriptor.
Show host Rich Lerner added this: “These great championships are better with a little bit of sentimentality attached to them.”
And Paul McGinley one-upped him from across the set.
“I believe in destiny, and sometimes the golfing gods have something in store,” he said.
So what it is it about Adam Scott? Michael Bamberger, arguably golf’s greatest living writer, was leaving the media center as I grappled with that question, so I lobbed it his way.
“He’s the closest thing we have to Federer,” Bamberger said, conjuring a comparison to the effortless grace of the tennis great. “He has an elegance about him.”
Golf’s history is full of Old Guy stories for a simple, obvious reason: Compared to other sports, it’s much easier to play at a high level when you’re old. But that doesn’t make them any less special. Consider that two of the greatest Masters wins in history were classic Old Guy’s Still Got It narratives: 46-year-old Jack Nicklaus winning in 1986 (“There’s life in the old Bear yet!”) and 43-year-old Tiger Woods in 2019 (“The return to glory!”). Scott’s halfway between their ages now, even if he’s well shy of 50-year-old Phil Mickelson’s win at the 2021 PGA Championship.
It doesn’t always work out for the Old Guy, of course. Fifty-nine-year-old Tom Watson came heartbreakingly close at the 2009 Open. Fifty-one-year-old Sam Snead nearly won the 1963 Masters. More recently Justin Rose, who’s 44 like Scott, finished second at the 2024 Open and then lost the 2025 Masters in a playoff.
So expect the crowd to be on Scott’s side come Sunday, as he plays the final round of his 96th consecutive major. Because he’s been a fan favorite for two decades-plus. Because his resume should include more than one major. Because if he can still do something great then we, aging less gracefully on the sidelines, are capable of greatness too.
Dylan Dethier is a senior writer for GOLF Magazine/GOLF.com. The Williamstown, Mass. native joined GOLF in 2017 after two years scuffling on the mini-tours. Dethier is a graduate of Williams College, where he majored in English, and he’s the author of 18 in America, which details the year he spent as an 18-year-old living from his car and playing a round of golf in every state.
