ATLANTA -- Adam Scott didn’t want to waste another chance to win a golf tournament.

Not after finishing second or third six times already this year. So when he got the opportunity at the season-ending TOUR Championship presented by Coca-Cola, Scott didn’t flinch, shooting a 66 Sunday that staked him to a three-stroke victory.

The win vaulted Scott to third place on the PGA TOUR money list -- not to mention, lent further credence to his rise from No. 8 to No. 4 in the Official World Golf Ranking over the last 12 months.

“It really does make a big difference,” Scott said. “I feel like all the hard work and everything I've put into it has actually paid off and I haven't come up short. I was pretty determined to finish it off today coming out here, and didn't want to throw away this opportunity as well as some others I had done earlier in the year.

“You know, Christmas is going to be great, and obviously going to the Mercedes (-Benz Championship) I'm going to be a lot happier starting there than somewhere else later in the year.”

Jim Furyk, who finished second to Scott on Sunday, can understand more than most how motivated the 26-year-old Aussie was.

He finished fourth on the PGA TOUR money list in 1997 on the strength of 13 top-10 finishes. Furyk didn’t win, though, and he remembers all too well that “empty” feeling at the end of the season.

“It doesn't mean it's a bad year, but you prepare and you tee it up and you practice every week trying to win golf tournaments,” Furyk said. “Even though you still have to answer that, "it was a good year but" question and you're not happy when you go without winning.

“But he's obviously played very consistent all year, and it's tough to do. It's tough to show up prepared and ready to go that often and be that motivated all the time.”

Scott entered the final round at East Lake with a three-stroke advantage and never let Furyk or Joe Durant, who finished alone in third, get closer than two. He met their challenges -- as well as some of his own -- with the composure of the champion he was.

Durant heard the cheers when Scott holed a bunker shot at the 13th for his final birdie of the day. “I kind of looked at Jim, laughed, and we didn't have to say it, but we knew it was pretty much game, set, match as far as the winner was concerned,” he said.

Still, Scott had a few anxious moments after a scrambling bogey at the 16th hole and an errant tee shot into the trees on the left side of the fairway at No. 17. He hit his second shot short of the green but went on to drain the 20-footer to save par.

Scott followed the putt with a fist pump, and this time, it really was game, set, match. He two-putted for par on the difficult par-3 18th and raised both arms into the air in jubilation.

“He's got a great game,” Furyk said. “He hits the ball extremely well. He's got a good swing, strikes it well, has some power, and has a good short game. What I like, he's very mature for a 26-year-old. He's kind of past his -- he's ahead of himself in years for his maturity on the golf course and the way he plays.

“I'm impressed by his game, but I didn't realize actually he was 26, to be honest with you. I assumed he was probably around 30 years old. I guess he turned pro so early, probably around the age of 19, you kind of forget those things.”

Great things have been expected of Scott since he turned pro in 2000. At the urging of the coach he shared at the time with Tiger Woods, Butch Harmon, Scott joined the European Tour for seasoning first.

Adam Scott celebrates after his victory Sunday. (Greenwood/WireImage)

He won his first PGA TOUR title in 2003, capturing the Deutsche Bank Championship at the age of 23 years, 1 month and 16 days. Titles at THE PLAYERS Championship and Booz Allen Classic came the following year and he also owns an unofficial title at the rain-shortened Nissan Open in 2005.

Scott says he’ll feel more comfortable at No. 4 in the world now that he’s got a victory under his belt this year. But he’s striving for much, much more. Scott wants to win majors and he wants to become No. 1 in the world.

“I think I've come a long way this year as far as a lot of things go,” he said. “My game in itself has come a long way, but I think maybe I've come a long way in some other players' minds, and that's nice.”

After top-10s at the British Open and PGA Championship, Scott thinks he’s finally getting over the “major” thing. Before those, he thinks he “played too defensive for too many years in majors and didn't trust my game.”

Scott will need plenty of that trust and all of his abundant talent to topple Woods. And should he ever replace arguably the game’s best player ever at No. 1, he says, “then I think that would be maybe the best achievement I could ever do in golf.”

Sunday was another step toward that goal.