When one door closes, another door opens. Or, in golf terms, when one golfer collapses, another one sneaks out with a win. In this case, those golfers were Adam Scott and Ernie Els, respectively, at least when it comes to the 2012 Open Championship.
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Four shots ahead with four holes to play, Scott lost all of his momentum (and then some), bogeying holes 15 to 18 at Royal Lytham & St Annes. Els ended up winning due to a near-pressureless 15-foot birdie putt some time earlier. Thankfully for Scott, he bounced back the next April with a playoff victory at the Masters, but the one that got away is hard to forget.
It almost seems cosmic then that the two crossed paths on the Oakmont range before Scott’s latest chance to right that major wrong, and the pair shared some words and embraced before the Aussie’s final round at this US Open.
Ernie Els wishing Adam Scott good luck ahead of the final round of the U.S. Open. 👏 pic.twitter.com/c0vOTArhFe
— Golf Digest (@GolfDigest) June 15, 2025
The four-time major winner wished the contender good luck and is one of many hoping for a great round for the fan favourite. Few know more about the challenging Oakmont test than Els since he won the 1994 US Open at the vaunted course. He had plenty to say on Instagram earlier in the week about the course’s beautiful “brutality”.
“Patience and endurance are your strongest allies,” Els said. “And the thing with Oakmont is, you’ve got to play all the shots. The one-dimensional approach doesn’t cut it. You’ve got to shape the ball both ways off the tee and into the greens, to counter the severe slopes. You’ve got to mix it up off the tee… The tougher holes, you’ve just got to hang on.”
We’re assuming Els didn’t go on this entire monologue to Scott, and instead just wished him the best. It’s not like Scott doesn’t know what he needs to do. He needs to win a major. That’s it. And now that he’s encountered the ghosts from his past, he just needs a few good hours to join Els in US Open history.
