This year, particularly, Adam Scott has demonstrated a longevity that is becoming rare in modern sport. He played in his 93rd consecutive major recently at the Open Championship – he’s played every major since the 2000 Open at St Andrews. The Queenslander made it to the final 30 on the PGA Tour who teed up at the Tour Championship in Atlanta, guaranteeing himself starts in all four majors in 2025. That will take Scott to 97 consecutive majors, while a lifetime invitation to the Masters, which he can use for Augusta National in 2026, will take him to 98. He finished runner-up on the PGA Tour twice this year, at the Scottish Open and the elite BMW Championship recently.

He could be forgiven, at the age of 44, for taking his foot off the gas. Especially after a brilliant career that has yielded, among other things: a lone major at the 2013 Masters, 14 PGA Tour victories, eight European Tour wins, four Asian Tour titles, one Australian Open and two Australian PGAs and two Australian Masters.

But the pinnacle of his career? He chatted to Claire Rogers recently for her brilliant The Scoop series and shed some light on what he considers his peak.

“The high point? I think being No.1 in the world, looking back,” Scott said [watch the video at the bottom of this page]. “I’ve won a major and it was my best win, but getting to No.1, when I turned pro [in 2000] it was my childhood dream and it didn’t seem realistic. Tiger was so dominant and a couple guys made it [to No.1, including David Duval, Vijay Singh, Luke Donald and Lee Westwood] but Tiger was pretty much No.1 [for most of 1999 through 2011]. So to stick at it and finally get there, 14 yeas after I turned pro, [was my high point].”

Scott scaled Mount Golf in May 2014, and even won his first event ranked No.1 (PGA Tour’s Colonial). He went on to hold the top gong for 11 weeks. “I didn’t keep it very long but I got there,” Scott joked.

Scott is currently enjoying a short offseason and is set to tee up at the BMW PGA at Wentworth, the DP World Tour’s flagship event, next week. He says he’s inspired by the challenge of keeping up with the younger tour stars in today’s game.

“I think the game is changing a lot; the way I learned the game is not the way people learn today,” Scott said. “I think there is a balance in there, somewhere. I’m learning how to keep pace with this new generation, but there is no perfect with golf at this point. I don’t chase perfection and that’s one thing I’ve learned over all these years.”