​Adam Scott won the 2006 Tour Championship. He has a chance to win his second 20 years later.Getty ImagesTwenty years ago this November, the PGA Tour’s Tour Championship was contested in early November. It was still held at East Lake Golf Club, but it was a time before the FedEx Cup, before the professional golf world as we know it began to take shape. A time before Brian Rolapp arrived and worked to reshape the PGA Tour’s postseason model from the FedEx Cup to a new iteration that will begin in 2028. That week, as the PGA Tour’s 30 best players were playing in Atlanta, Tom Brady threw four interceptions in a Sunday Night Football loss to Peyton Manning and the Indianapolis Colts. Brady would go on to play 16 more seasons, win four more Super Bowls and retire in 2022. On that Sunday in 2006 at East Lake, Adam Scott defeated Jim Furyk to win the Tour Championship. A lot has changed about golf and the world since that November in 2006. Change has been a constant force in pro golf ever since Tiger Woods arrived, forever altering the sport. The money grows, the sponsors and tournaments and schedules shift and the players get younger and better. But as change continues to mold and shape the pro golf world, Adam Scott has remained a timeless pro— one who is still grinding to be a top player in the world, still believing that he can compete and beat the world’s best, still believing he has more to achieve after a Hall of Fame career. The 46-year-old Australian has seen the game change. He sees it as “deeper” and more competitive than it used to be. Where young players used to have to work their way to PGA Tour breakthroughs, the last decade has seen young talent arrive and immediately make a splash, starting with Jordan Spieth. “The learning curve is a lot quicker,” Scott said after opening the 2026 Tour Championship with a 66 on Thursday. “I think they learn in college now. I think I came out, I didn’t know a lot. I didn’t learn a lot in college, in the classroom or on the golf course. Then there was like this apprenticeship, you served as a Tour pro, and it was at least five years before you really knew how to play. You’ve just seen over the last 10 to 15 years, from Jordan Spieth onwards, guys coming out of college so prepared. “I’d say it’s much harder, and I probably took for granted those years where I was kind of cruising through out here. I feel like the moment I relax, I just plummet down the rankings and leaderboards and everything. There’s no letting up out here.” That 2006 Tour Championship was Scott’s fourth career win on the PGA Tour. He won in 2007, 2008, 2010 and 2011 before winning the 2013 Masters, his lone major title. He has only won three times since then, the latest coming at the 2020 Genesis Invitational, but his game has rarely dipped save for the expected ebb and flow of a long career. He played in his 100th consecutive major championship at the U.S. Open this year and made the Tour Champions