It wasn’t the title defence he was hoping for at the Honda Classic but Adam Scott showed signs his game is coming around with a top 15 finish in Florida.

It was a case of two steps forward and one step back for the 2016 champion at PGA National with 16 birdies for the week offset by eight bogeys and two doubles.

A final round 68, to go with opening scores of 68-69-71, was enough to see Scott finish 4-under for the week and the pick of the Australians who teed up by two shots.

As is so often the case for the 2013 Masters champion his ball striking was above average at the difficult Jack Nicklaus layout but his putting let him down.

He gained strokes on the field in both fairways hit and greens in regulation but gave up just over a shot per round in the all-important Strokes Gained Putting category.

Scott will no doubt be working hard to correct that ahead of a second title defence in as many weeks at the upcoming World Golf Championship Mexico Championship starting Thursday.

Marc Leishman had been on track for Australian bragging rights through 54 holes but was derailed by a final round of 3-over-par 73.

An opening birdie looked promising for the Victorian but two bogeys on his way to the turn and another three dropped shots on the journey home, including a water ball double bogey at the dangerous par-3 15^th, wrecked his card.

Having started the day in the top 20 Leishman fell to T27, a disappointing result in a week that had shown a lot of promise.

Consistent golf was the theme over the first three rounds with 67-70-68 setting him up for a potential top 10 run on Sunday.

Greg Chalmers was the last of the six Australians in the field to make the cut and finished T57 at 3-over-par for the week.

John Senden, Brett Drewitt and Steven Bowditch all missed the cut while Cameron Percy withdrew after 11 holes of the first round citing a back injury.