OAKMONT, Pa. — Adam Scott spent the majority of Friday afternoon going unnoticed. As difficult as that might be for the popular Australian golfer who won the 2013 Masters, it worked perfectly at the U.S. Open.
Scott, 44, never strayed far from par, making three birdies and three bogeys during the second round at Oakmont Country Club and finding himself right in the thick of contention.
It wasn’t fancy, but effective.
“I’m playing old man par golf at the moment,” Scott said.
He shot a second straight 70 to finish at 140, even par, which was good enough to trail second-round leader Sam Burns by three shots. J.D. Spaun is second at 138 with Viktor Hovland third at 139. Scott is tied for fourth with Ben Griffin.
Scott, who is playing in his 24th U.S. Open, is also making a 96th consecutive start in a major championship dating to the 2001 British Open. It is the longest streak in golf history behind Jack Nicklaus’s 146 from 1962 to 1998.
His best U.S. Open finish was a tie for fourth 10 years ago at Chambers Bay.
“I’d be pretty proud of winning this thing on the weekend,” said Scott, who would be the second-oldest U.S. Open winner behind 45-year-old Hale Irwin, the 1990 winner. “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.
“I feel like this is what I’ve been working towards. I was kind of in the mix late at the PGA [Championship, where he tied for 19th], and now kind of putting myself in this one for the weekend. It’s a long way to go, but I feel like my game is in good enough shape to do this.”
Scott is doing the sort of things you need to do at Oakmont, namely hitting fairways. He’s hit 17 of 28 so far as well as 27 of 36 greens.
Over two days, he has eight birdies and eight bogeys.
“For most of the first two days, I’ve been in the fairway off the tee, and therefore there hasn’t been too much stress in the rounds,” he said. “I think I’ve played well off the tee, and the rest of the game has been O.K. from there. But I’d say I’ve been fairly strong off the tee.”
Scott said he welcomed the rain that was beginning to fall—and later got heavy—as he spoke to reporters, believing the course could use what some softness might bring.
“It was starting to look like another day of hot, dry weather and the weekend would be very difficult out here,” he said. “There were certain greens that had a slickness about them and a firmness too. Fairways even getting a little bit like that. So the rain might keep it under control, hopefully, and spare us some frustrations.”
And yet, Scott was doing just fine. He’ll have a late tee time, likely with Hovland, on Saturday afternoon and seems to be holding his own amid the tough conditions.
How that changes will be part of the challenge, one that Scott embraces even more at this point in his career.
“Not to put down anything else, but this is really where my mind goes at the start of every year and what I think about is—of course I’d like to win lots more tournaments, any of them, to be perfectly honest,” said Scott, who has 14 victories on the PGA Tour with the lone major coming at the Masters. “I’d like to win something.
“But I have put together a nice career, but I think another major more would really go a long way in fulfilling my own self, when it’s all said and done.
“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.”
This article was originally published on www.si.com as Behind ‘Old Man Par Golf,’ Adam Scott Is in the Hunt for a U.S. Open Title.