TOUR CHAMPIONSHIP

August 25, 2026

Adam Scott

East Lake Golf Club

Press Conference

THE MODERATOR: We'd like to welcome 14-time PGA TOUR winner Adam Scott to the media center at the TOUR Championship. Adam, this is your 14th start in the TOUR Championship and first since 2024 when you had a great finish here. What's it like being back here at East Lake this week?

ADAM SCOTT: Yeah, it's really nice to be back. It's a goal at the start of the year to make it this far for everyone, and just kind of living on the edge a little bit last week and scraped through. Now with the reset, I feel like I'm coming in No. 1 on the FedExCup. It's a great opportunity for me. All these kind of, I guess, little achievements throughout the season and the rewards are meaningful at this point.

Certainly looking forward to next year beyond this event. Being in the Signature Events and the majors is a real bonus because this year coming out it was certainly a bit of a burden on me trying to make sure I positioned myself for all the big events. But the schedule wasn't on my terms.

Q. Obviously your streak in major championships is a pretty big thing. What does it mean still being able to get to the TOUR Championship at this stage in your career and to be able to do it so consistently through the years?

ADAM SCOTT: I think you kind of summed up my career in your question. I would say consistent. The lows haven't been terribly low over a 25-year span. I haven't really fallen off the map completely. I've had my downs, of course. They feel a lot worse than probably what they really are. And I've had some highs as well.

I've taken a lot of pride in my game that I've managed to maintain myself at generally the top-50 level my entire career, and the TOUR Championship probably requires a little more than that.

Like I said, I'm out here. I'm not really out here making up the numbers. I take a lot of pride in my game. I want to play well when I'm out here. Happy to be here this week and give myself at least the recognition of being in the top 30 on the TOUR.

Q. If you were to get hot and win this thing, would you feel at all guilty about being the FedExCup champion?

ADAM SCOTT: No. At this point, no. No, but it is -- being at that bottom end of the 30 coming in, it is like playing with house money, that's for sure.

Q. I'm curious about your viewpoint on match play with the TOUR Championship heading into 2028 and how important you feel like that change is for two years from now.

ADAM SCOTT: Yeah, I think the match play was pushed pretty hard by a lot of people around the TOUR who had a say in this. I would say I came around to the idea of match play. I definitely like the fact that we're doing it over two weeks. It's very different. I like the fact that the TOUR kind of had the courage to really step outside the box on this one and not do some sort of contrived variant of what we have or what we have had with a match play tournament previously.

This is new and exciting, and I feel like could be -- from a playing standpoint, I hope it's going to be a really fun end to what's going to be a tough season of golf. I hope the players will find that it's a fun finish and they can enjoy it.

I think also, too, more from the commercial side of things, I think there's a lot of flexibility with this format moving forward, and it can adapt and hopefully thrive to whatever conditions we face in the future.

Q. (No microphone.)

ADAM SCOTT: One, it's completely different than anything we have in golf. We don't have an event over two weeks. You can't really compare golf to other sports. But we see longer competitions in other sports. Maybe the first one that comes to mind over two weeks is like a Grand Slam in tennis.

I feel like there's a real opportunity for people to kind of buy in over a two-week period and grow as the tournament carries on. I'll be interested to see if that happens or if that's not the case.

As we see with World Cup football or other events that are longer, there's a chance for it to really develop and it's not over so quickly. I think that'll be interesting, and I think it could work well for the TOUR Championship, which should be an important event on our schedule.

Q. Do you have a dream venue that you'd like to see the TOUR Championship be played at?

ADAM SCOTT: Yeah. I think there's lots really that you could play at. Not even ones that necessarily I've played. Maybe one I haven't played; that would be fun to go to.

I think some of the great old clubs architecture-wise could be really fun. I think of a course like Friars Head. I've never even played it, but it sounds amazing. I just think everyone raves about it. There's so much you can do. That event seems like it can be flexible. It can cater to that field one year if you want it to, you can build it out on a bigger stage somewhere else like a Bellerive last week if you so desire it as well.

I think there's some flexibility with it. I like that. I like the fact that it can maybe not tire people of the same thing all the time if there's going to be some variance over the years.

Q. Were you pushing for Sand Hills in the meetings?

ADAM SCOTT: No, it wasn't brought up until last week, but now I'll start that campaign.

Q. When you keep talking about it gives you flexibility, what do you mean by that?

ADAM SCOTT: I don't think it's really that important at this point, but I just feel when I look -- I tend to take a big-picture view of things, and I would obviously like this format to be long-lasting. I think we can say this FedExCup format has been long-lasting, although we've had several different versions of it. If you take this same time period, the economic climate can change, everything can change. We've been making these changes over the last few years for whatever reasons.

I just think this event has the ability to kind of adapt to whatever is required. It can have a big build-out, like I said, at a big golf course with TOUR Championship style. It can have a smaller more intimate setting potentially. Really whatever the climate is asking for.

Q. On that second point, on the intimate setting, in terms of a product, especially one shown on television or what have you, what is the value of an intimate setting versus big noise, which has kind of been the R&A philosophy?

ADAM SCOTT: Well, I think you've got to, relatively speaking -- I'm not saying intimate setting we're having 50 people out there, I'm saying intimate setting you might have 5,000 to 7,000, and if you put that on a smaller golf course, it'll feel quite tight and I think still provide the drama and the excitement that players, fans or television want.

Like I said, I think you can adapt and you can manage all those kind of things to whatever the market is deciding going forward. But ultimately, the players really need to enjoy the event, and hopefully there's less critique of it over the next 17 years than there has been of this.

I'm sure there are going to be alterations, but I think this is a little easier for everyone to wrap their heads around hopefully.

Q. In the meetings with the Future Competition Committee, how much did it evolve and maybe did your thinking evolve on what the things are that we're starting to learn about and how the new shape of the TOUR is going to be? Did you all feel pressure to try to put together something new, unique and that you think will be lasting?

ADAM SCOTT: For me, yeah, it evolved a lot. I'm guessing, but there's 12 or 16 people sitting around those committee meetings. There's lots of opinions, lots of different stop points with their own beliefs. They all can be right as well. But you can't necessarily fit them all into a model, let's say.

If this isn't exactly what I would have drawn up if it was left to Adam, but I think it's a better version than what I would have drawn up. I learned a lot listening to the different partners that are deeply involved in the TOUR that want to stay deeply involved in the TOUR and what's important to them.

But ultimately, from a player point of view, I hate to call it a compromise, but I think we've got the best of both worlds here. From a playing side, I feel we've got a season of real significance, of meaning, of 72-hole stroke play with full fields of the best players in the world playing together, and we'll find a season champion.

Then like the cherry on top is the TOUR Championship, which is a different format that I think, from what we're hearing, everyone likes a bracket to finish a sporting competition. Certainly in the United States they do.

I really evolved my thinking about match play for this time of year, and I have nothing to add other than it's almost like a month of match play with a cup afterwards, whether it's a Ryder Cup or Presidents Cup. I think it's a fitting time for it. I think it could be interesting matches over two weeks leading into the big cups. I think it only benefits both events.

Q. Speaking of Presidents Cup, to have the top (indiscernible) what does that mean? And for you to be right there for another Presidents Cup, what does that mean to you?

ADAM SCOTT: Yeah, it's great. We had an International Team dinner in Memphis with Geoff Ogilvy, and I made the point that the guys who were there -- obviously it was more than just 12 guys, but it was guys who were having a big chance to make the team here in the next week, how great it is to see Ryan Fox win the Open right now so close to the Presidents Cup, Tom Kim won the Scottish Open the week before, Min Woo was runner-up, Si Woo is having an incredible year week after week. And just that momentum as I come into trying to make the team and this cup is huge confidence for me to see the other guys playing well.

To have six guys here this week, I feel fantastic about that for our International Team. What a great time of year as far as the Presidents Cup goes to have guys in form. That's certainly exciting as we go to Medinah and try and win this thing.