DUBLIN, Ohio — A year ago, Adam Scott was in a bad place.

Twelve months later, he’s in a much better place: In position to win the Memorial Tournament.

The moral to Scott’s story is perseverance.

Playing in last year’s Memorial at Muirfield Village, Scott’s results and world ranking — and subsequently his playing status — had sagged to such a depth that he wasn’t even qualified to play the U.S. Open two weeks later at Shinnecock Hills.

So Scott’s impressive steak of consistency — having played in 67 consecutive major championships, including the previous 16 U.S. Opens — was in jeopardy of being snapped unless he could get to Shinnecock via the grueling 36-hole U.S. Open sectional qualifying tournament, which took place the day after the Memorial.

For weeks, when Scott was asked about it, he dropped hints that he might not even put himself through sectional qualifying, that if he didn’t qualify for the U.S. Open by elevating his ranking and status with strong tournament results, he was planning to skip it altogether.

“There was definitely some frustration in my game 12 months ago at this point,’’ Scott, 38, said Friday after posting a 6-under 66 to get to 7-under for the tournament, two shots out of the lead shared by Martin Kaymer, Troy Merritt and Kyoung-Hoon Lee. “It wasn’t like I was just playing horrible, but I just really couldn’t get anything to go my way. If I did something good, the other part of my game was ordinary. I guess that had gone on for a while, and it takes its toll on the brain.

“I remember being here [at Memorial] on the weekend and knowing I probably needed a Top-10 or something to qualify [for the U.S. Open]. And I was right there for just a good round on Sunday to do it and I just played really average. So I had the experience of going to [U.S. Open] qualifying for the first time in a long time. But in the end, it was a good experience, I guess.’’

Entering the final round last year at the Memorial in a tie for 11th with a Top-10 finish likely to get him to Shinnecock, Scott shot 73 and fell to a tie for 35th. He had just one Top-10 finish in 14 starts to that point in the season and the Memorial was his fifth event in five weeks.

Scott was as fried as he was frustrated.

That’s when he made the 11th-hour decision to play in the sectional qualifier at nearby Brookside Golf & Country Club.

Scott was, after all, a 14-time PGA Tour winner, including the 2012 Masters, a Players Championship, a Tour Championship, three WGC titles and a former No. 1 ranked player in the world (in 2014). Was he going to bail on a U.S. Open sectional qualifier because he was above it?

“It was definitely a pride thing,’’ Scott said. “I wanted to be at the U.S. Open, unsatisfied just mailing it in and sitting on the couch when I could have been given a start.’’

Scott made it through sectionals and got into the U.S. Open, missing the cut at Shinnecock, his 68th consecutive start in a major championship and 17th consecutive U.S. Open.

“It wasn’t that I didn’t want to put myself through that,’’ Scott said of the U.S. Open qualifier. “It was just I think I played five in a row and I had done that with the idea that I can get in by doing that. At the time, I didn’t know what the right thing to do was. When you’re frustrated and not sure of which move to make, that’s how it feels. So I honestly didn’t know.

“But I think life probably got the better of me and thought, ‘You should go and qualify and at least you’ve given it everything, rather than sitting home on the couch watching.’ ’’

Since last year, Scott hasn’t won again, but his results have been on an up-tick. After the missed cut at Shinnecock, he finished tied for 17th at the British Open, third at the PGA and this season he has a runner-up at the Farmers Insurance Open and he also contended at the Genesis Open (T7), the Players (T12), Masters (T18) and PGA (T8).

And in two weeks, after some time off, he will play in his 73rd consecutive major championship in the U.S. Open at Pebble Beach.

Now Scott, a proven winner, is not merely focused on qualifying for major championships, he’s focused on winning them.