Adam Scott, whose swing was tailored to be a carbon copy of Tiger Woods', once was the finest golfer on the planet under 30, reaching No. 3 in the World Golf Rankings in 2007.
The talented Aussie leaves his 20s behind next month, hoping that the best is not in his rear-view mirror.
Scott, who has posted at least one victory somewhere in the world every year since 2001, suffered through a nightmare season a year ago, dropping out of the top 50 in the rankings.
After hitting rock bottom by missing six consecutive cuts and 10 in a span of 13 events on the PGA Tour, he turned things around by winning the Australian Open in December and then claimed his seventh PGA Tour victory last month in the Texas Open.
Scott was back up to No. 41 in the rankings last week but doesn't claim to be out of the woods, especially after missing the cut last week in the U.S. Open at Pebble Beach.
"I think I'm in the first step of making it through that," said Scott, who is playing this week in the Travelers Championship. "Certainly, I'm playing in a much better standard now than I was then.
"But I think in the long run it's really going to show up — all the things that I've dealt with and learned and kind of put behind me and moved through [are] going to show up in my game over the next six months or a year or five years.
"I think I can be a much, much better player than I was before, even when I was playing my best."
Scott never really made excuses, but his skid probably was the result of a combination of factors that included breaking up with his girlfriend of seven years, a broken hand, a dislocated kneecap and a lingering throat ailment.
He's not sure when the low point came, but he can pinpoint the moment his comeback began.
"One shot turned everything around for me, and that was a 7-iron on my 36th hole at the Singapore Open last (October)," Scott told reporters three weeks ago at the Memorial Tournament. "And I hit it to a foot.
"I thought I had to make a par to make the cut, but I had to make a birdie in the end, and I hit it to a foot and made the birdie and made the cut. I was playing good, and I nearly missed the cut again.
"Then I had a great weekend and finished third."
Scott always has been considered one of the better ball-strikers in the world, and he still is. He ranks third on the PGA Tour in greens in regulation this season, having made it on 70.18 percent of his chances.
However, the putter has kept him from being even better in the good times, and he has made an important move to correct that — which has paid some early dividends.
After missing the cut at the end of April in the Quail Hollow Championship, where he recorded five three-putts, he got a 30-minute putting lesson from Dave Stockton, considered to be one of the great putters of all time.
Two weeks later, after working with Stockton and his son, Dave Jr., he won in San Antonio.
"It was a subtle change," Scott said of what the Stocktons told him. "It wasn't anything unnatural. It wasn't a method. It was just where I felt I've been in that position before. So it was a nice feeling and obviously easy for me to put into my game.
"It took a couple weeks, and then on that Sunday (when he took only 25 putts in the final round of the Texas Open), I finally got them all going in. So I'm really grateful to those guys for the very short amount of time that we've spent working on it."
Even though he is looking forward, Scott doesn't want to completely forget what happened to him last year.
There are lessons to be learned from it.
"It just got away from me somehow," Scott said in reflection. "When you play well, you think you're never going to play bad. And when you're playing bad, you're never sure you're going to play well again. That's how it is. I think everyone in this game has eaten the old humble pie at some point.
" ... I definitely questioned myself at times last year, whether I was a great player or not, and I still feel I am. It's hard to maintain that for 20 straight years, I've got to believe, and I did a good job of it for a long time. I got myself in a bit of a funk last year and, you know, fell off the radar, but that's how it is."
It happens to the best of them. Just ask Woods.
