The ominous feeling lingering after Oakmont’s drudging finish 

OAKMONT, Pa. — Adam Scott likes watches. He wears Rolexes whenever he isn’t making swings, but it goes a bit deeper. Scott actually tracks trends in the watch industry. He’s brought friends and family to watch factories.

“Once you know how they’re made,” Scott told me once, “and you understand how this mechanism is working inside, automatically, not powered by anything other than an oscillating weight, some springs, some tiny pieces of metal, and the tiniest screws you’ve ever seen — it’s pretty unbelievable that it just keeps running.”

One could say the same of his 44-year-old golfing body.

Why the obsession with timepieces, I asked. 

“Things I get involved with,” he said, “I like to know stuff about. I don’t want to be ignorant.”

If we’re looking for the real reason why Adam Scott was where he was early Sunday afternoon — in the final pairing of the final round at the U.S. Open — it’s partly in that answer. Scott is in a years-long battle against ignorance, attacking the final phase of an outstanding career by taking control of basically everything. Building slowly throughout the week, he became the most compelling story at Oakmont, and because it didn’t end how he wanted, he remains one of the most compelling stories in the sport. Can a man in his 40s topple a field of youthful world-beaters?

It was in March 2023 when Scott realized he had been going about the final stage of his career all wrong and, as he called it, needed to “adapt or die.” Multiple generations of players had arrived and made his game feel existential, wailing away at driver, ignoring the penalties and … beating him. 

Scott made a bunch of gear changes, ditching the Titleist clubs he’d played forever and becoming an equipment free agent. He made mindset changes, too, working with Edoardo Molinari, a fellow 42-year-old at the time, who doubles as a stats coach for many pros. Scott learned you can aim into the rough and, if you hit it far enough, the benefits outweigh the consequences.

Rather than hire a full-time coach, Scott enlisted Trevor Immelman, a longtime friend, former pro and now traveling broadcaster, to advise him on swing tweaks whenever their paths crossed. The results arrived quickly, perhaps quicker than he imagined, and Scott became a top 20 player in the world by the end of 2023. But those weren’t the results he was really after.

Scott isn’t in this to be a top 20 player. He did that throughout most of his 20s. He now has three kids and a wife who live in Switzerland. He doesn’t want to labor through the “Tour grind,” playing 25 times a year. He’s made his countless millions, but he feels slightly unfulfilled without that second major on his résumé. So when he needed a 72 on Sunday to reach a playoff but carded 79 instead, finishing outside the top 10, it left an ominous question: 

What if that was it? 

As in, what if his run at Oakmont ends up being the last best chance he has at checking that box? It might feel limiting, sudden, or even offensive to ask the question just a few days removed, but we were all thinking it at some point Sunday. That’s why the crowd at Oakmont leaned in his direction after that back nine 32 on Saturday. A member of Scott’s team said you could feel the throng of spectators analyze the leaderboard and push their energy toward him. It felt something like what happened at The Open last year for Justin Rose, or again for Rose at the Masters in April.

Can we get the old man over the line? 

Maybe it isn’t surprising that two of this century’s greatest talents are still doing it in 2025, but there is some nice symmetry to it. Scott’s and Rose’s careers have so closely aligned — one major each, won during the same year, 2013 — that they even reference each other in press conferences.

“Always being a ‘Nearly Great’ of the game is spurring us on in our later years,” Scott said at Troon last summer.

“Still doing it, still competitive, still willing and able,” Rose said at Augusta in April.

They both lumped Sergio Garcia into their generation, too, only that second-major dilemma hits even harder for the Spaniard. He hasn’t had a single top 10 in a major since his 2017 Masters win, a product of his own making, through form or committing to LIV Golf. The league’s inability to garner world ranking points has severely limited major championship access for a lot of its signees, and along with it the potential for something like what Scott did at Oakmont. 

Henrik Stenson will have another decade of Open Championships, but that might be it. Ian Poulter and Lee Westwood are stuck having to qualify their way into all four majors. Phil Mickelson has now officially run out of U.S. Open exemptions. Dustin Johnson will only be qualified for the Masters and U.S. Open next year, and his form isn’t looking to change that fact. For a lot of golf’s best players in their 40s, the future of major championships is extra murky, which is what makes the journey of Scott and Rose so tantalizing. They’ve gotten as close as they can to increasing their major win total by 100 percent. Luckily for us, Scott has been incredibly transparent about what he wants to really get out of it. 

Scott told me 18 months ago that, if pressed to choose, he would label himself an underachiever more than an overachiever. That his 2004 Players Championship and 2013 Masters — not to mention reaching World No. 1 and notching 12 other wins — leave him a bit lacking in the legacy department. When we talked, it was at the outset of 2024, in Dubai, and Scott was refreshed and excited about the year to come. He nearly bagged the Scottish Open in July, betrayed by a wild ruling that allowed Bob MacIntyre to steal his national open. No one really bothered to think what that win would have done for Scott, the Aussie, watching from scoring, as thousands of Scots sang their national anthem across the 18th green. It would have been his 15th career Tour win and first since the 2020 Genesis Invitational — the final tournament he played before the Covid pandemic shut down the world. 

When we chatted in Dubai, Scott seemed to view the future through a slowly closing window, never quite putting a deadline to it. He knew he could keep up his swing speed and ball-striking, but not forever. He nearly won the BMW Championship in August — again, finishing second — and then tacked on a third-place finish at the DP World Tour Championship. DataGolf ranked him 10th in the world in September, which is all good and fine for most people. Scott’s been ranked 10th or better for years at a time. But he’s not in it for rankings right now. He said he’s trying to show his children — all 10 or younger — that Dad can actually bring home a trophy. All of which made his conversation with Brendan Quinn of The Athletic especially insightful Sunday night. 

“I feel like I can keep this up for another 18 months, for sure,” Scott told Quinn from the Oakmont parking lot. “Then, at that point, I’ll be 46. I think I can push myself for the next year and a half and then reassess, you know?”

Pro golfers all seem like they’re on a mission, but kudos to Scott for spelling his out so bluntly and for sharing it so freely. Every time he does, he gets even more intriguing to watch, which is partly why I stood there, maybe 15 feet away, observing the quiet moments before the chaos.

Scott sat on a wooden chair on the clubhouse veranda, 90 minutes before that final Oakmont round, meticulously marking hole locations on his greens book. (Yes, while wearing a Rolex.) He had done the exact same thing a day earlier — different seat, same table — leading to that splendid 67. Every few ticks he stole a peek at the TV screen above him. On it were the kids who can out-bench him, out-putt him and run laps around him — all teeing off before him. His caddie sat next to him, but they weren’t saying much. Not nearly as much as they were thinking. It had to be something close to what we were all thinking. You never know when the last, best chance will be the last, best chance. 

“>