Adam Scott playing 'old man par golf' at U.S. Open, sits 3 shots off lead after 36 holes

USA Today

14 hours ago

Adam Scott playing 'old man par golf' at U.S. Open, sits 3 shots off lead after 36 holes
OAKMONT, Pa. – Adam Scott had the line of the day on Thursday to describe the conditions of Oakmont Country Club for the 125th U.S. Open. 'It's really hard. But it's not blow your brains out kind of hard just yet,' he said after shooting 70.
One day later, he was asked for a status update.
'Getting there,' he said. 'Guns loaded, maybe.'
But so far, it's been relatively stress-free for the Aussie, who is making his 96thconsecutive major appearance at this week's U.S. Open, the longest active streak. After a pair of even-par 70s at Oakmont, he sits T-4, three strokes behind 36-hole leader Sam Burns, and is a legitimate threat to win his second major title.
'I'm playing old-man-par golf at the moment,' he said of eight birdies and eight bogeys and the rest pars at the midway point of the season's third major.
Scott, who will turn 45 on the eve of the British Open next month, knows it has been more than 12 years since he won his lone major at the 2013 Masters and his window to add to his total may be running out. How would he describe his window? 'Ajar,' he deadpanned to laughter.
'I'd be pretty proud of winning this thing on the weekend,' he said. 'Right now, that's really what I'm here to do, and I feel like there's probably not been many signs to anyone else but me the last month or six weeks that my game is looking better. But I definitely feel more confident than I have been this year.'
Scott is winless on the PGA Tour since the 2020 Genesis Invitational and hasn't recorded a top-10 finish this season. He blamed his iron game, but that part of his game has come alive so far this week to go along with a fairway finder off the tee. He ranks second in Strokes Gained: Tee to Green, which has taken much of the stress off the rest of his game, and he ranks seventh in both SG: Tee to Green and Approach the Green and fourth in proximity to the hole. Golf Channel's Paul McGinley summed up well what the veteran Scott has been able to do so far at a place where he experienced one of his lowest of lows in 2007 when he missed the cut.
'The golf swing hasn't changed, but this is kind of out of left field,' McGinley said. 'All of his numbers are bad this year, he hasn't had a top 10… so for him to show up and drive it as well as he has, hit his irons as well as he has, and play with this kind of form, I mean, he looks like a guy who can go out there, put some numbers up on the board and add to his major championship total, and nobody would have really talked about him coming into this week.'
Scott visited Oakmont for a practice round the Monday after the Memorial and then made a conscious decision to avoid playing the course too much before the championship got underway. He played early Monday, took Tuesday off and did nine holes Wednesday morning.
'Not that I know the course so well but I didn't want to see balls in the rough and hacking around for three days,' he said.
Last month, he made a late run at the PGA Championship before backing up a bit. He'd like nothing more than to be in the trophy hunt and see if his experience can deliver him another major moment.
'I think another major more would really go a long way in fulfilling my own self, when it's all said and done,' he said. 'This is all I'm really playing for are these big events. There's probably eight of them off the top of my mind a year that I really want to win.'