Adam Scott's 89th consecutive major championship was not one he'll remember too affectionately - but Australia's evergreen golfing thoroughbred promises he'll be back for his 24th British Open next year still feeling he can be a major champion again.

A week after his 43th birthday, the former Masters champ was out there at Royal Liverpool on a rain-soaked Sunday morning.

He was getting drowned but still providing the odd sunshine moment - like splashing out of a pot bunker straight into the hole for an eagle two at the par-4 fourth.

It was the 18th time Scott has beaten the cut to complete the week at the British Open. He finished tied for 33rd.

But though his 12-year run of majors is now easily the longest sequence of any current male pro, Scott hasn't had a top-10 finish in one of the big ones for four years and, at his age, it cannot get any easier for this aristocrat of the game to keep the younger brigade at bay.

Yet Scott still believes.

"I still get a thrill from the Open. It's incredible," he said.

"It's kind of the reason I still work hard at my game, thinking I could have a chance to get that other hand on the Jug that I was so close to getting."

He's never going to forget his 2012 Open meltdown, when successive bogeys over the last four holes gifted the title to Ernie Els, but Scott feels he can still add to his Masters triumph of 10 years ago.

"Of course there are other things that I'd like to achieve still, but the majors are absolutely the priority for me, at the top of that list," he said.

"I really feel like if you get in a rich vein of form for a four-month stretch, you could bag a couple. We've seen lots of guys do it in the past few years."

Still ranked in the world's top 40, Scott added: "While I'm still feeling like I'm really playing relevant golf - which I think I am - I can still win on a given week. I'm hoping for it to show up at the four big ones.

"But I'm also at that point in my life where it's harder to balance everything, and every year it's worth having a look at how you're scheduling and preparing and what your priorities are as far as the golf goes."

At 43, is Scott surprised by how well he's playing?

"I'm hanging in there pretty good because I'm seeing a lot of the people I came out on Tour with now not here - some through injury, some through not playing well," he said.

"But it's much harder to stay up there. The early and mid-20-somethings are much better than they were 10 and 20 years ago. They're taking up a lot of the spots for the mid-40 guys.

"But over the next 12 months, my aim will be to come back and have another crack at the Open, be in good form - and maybe steal a trophy late on in my career."