by MONTREAL — Adam Scott stared at an achingly familiar leaderboard just left of 12e green as a few dozen fans stood stoically. The US Presidents Cup team was ten minutes away from thirteenth placee victory in the event and the Australian couldn’t do anything about it.
The Royal Montreal edition was Scott’s 11e began in the biennial blowout that, save for one moment in a previous century, has gone exclusively the American way, and it was impossible not to read the body language of a player who is 0-10-1 on the international stage.
It hasn’t always been this way. When Scott began his competitive career, he was the newcomer – The Players champion – determined to challenge the United States’ dominance of the game.
In his first start at the games in 2003, Scott won 3-2 for a team playing the American side, and Tiger Woods, to a draw in South Africa. Two years later he produced again at Robert Trent Jones Golf Club in Virginia, going 3-1-1 despite an international defeat.
Everything since then has been a disappointment.
After another fruitless week for the rest of the world, Scott now stands at 22-28-6. Lost on that scale is his victory alongside Taylor Pendrith on Day 2, which set the team record for points won and helped this edition reach 5-5, but ultimately did little to change an outcome that has become far too familiar.
Scott hasn’t had a winning record since his first two Presidents Cups and was 2-3 at Royal Montreal as the American team cruised to an 18 ½ to 11 ½ victory. But even when he was defeated – just as he has been for more than two decades – he clung to the idea that victory is in sight for the international team.
“I had a great feeling about the arrival of this team. I had the feeling that in the last two cups, four or five years later, there has been an evolution under this shield, and all the international players have signed up,” he said after his Sunday speech. singles loss to Collin Morikawa. “It’s something they want to play for. But you know, the result is unfortunately the same.”
More than any other player, Scott has been the face of the Presidents Cup, sometimes better and more often than not worse.
Morikawa was his eleventhe several singles opponents and he has had 19 different partners in team play, with little to show for his efforts. While his loss Sunday dropped him to 5-6 individually, it’s his team play that’s so baffling.
From Ernie Els and Retief Goosen to Pendrith and Hideki Matsuyama, he has played alongside the rest of the world’s best with staggeringly poor results and yet he is the pride, and perhaps the pain, of the international team.
When asked Sunday if he was driven to earn a spot in the 2026 squad that will face the Americans, it was Tom Kim, who is half Scott’s age, who spoke for the team.
‘Let’s make three more. Three more,” Kim declared.
That’s the problem with legacies: they aren’t always filled with achievements and accolades. Despite everything Scott has accomplished in his career, from winning a major championship to more than two decades on the PGA Tour and fourteen Tour titles, the Presidents Cup has always driven and dazzled him.
Weir praises the ‘high level play’ of Internationals
Following the 2024 Presidents Cup, the international team discusses how positively captain Mike Weir viewed the performance, Adam Scott’s team buy-in, Tom Kim making amends with Xander Schauffele and more.
“There’s almost no precedent, at least not for our side — I mean 11 Presidents Cups,” Geoff Ogilvy, one of Mike Weir’s assistant captains at Royal Montreal, said of Scott’s legacy. “He started with Ernie as a kid [Els] and Vijay [Singh] And [Angel] Cabrera and all those guys and he’s played all the way up to Tom Kim and all that. It’s as if it has gone on for generations. He is the heartbeat of the team. He starts talking and all the kids stop talking. When Adam Scott talks about the Presidents Cup, you stop and listen.”
It seems unlikely that the 2024 Presidents Cup will be Scott’s last, but in golf, as in life, time is undefeated. He needed a late summer equipment and attitude change to qualify for this year’s team and he admitted the game is becoming increasingly difficult.
“I’m having a lot of fun with these guys. I told them at the beginning of this week that they are the ones who motivate and inspire me to form this team,” said Scott. “The standard of golf is so high, and it’s getting harder and harder for me to keep up, but it’s them I look to to see what the standard is that I need to compete and be part of this team. Hopefully I can keep this up for a few more years.”
But while the body and game, which produced four top-10 finishes in his last five starts of the season, remain willing to do so, there’s no denying that Scott will be 46 years old by the next game. While that will be far less than the oldest player to ever play for the international team (that honor goes to Jumbo Ozaki, who was 49 when he played the ’96 games), there’s no denying that the game is getting younger .
Scott will be involved in the ’26 games in some way, either as vice-captain or as a player (he’s a good choice to captain Australia in ’28), but as he spends another week on the wrong side from the victory column ended it was impossible to ignore what he meant, not only for the international team, but also for an event that continues to desperately search for equality.
