Spieth closes in on 3rd career Grand Slam

Jordan Spieth is one round away from the third leg of the career Grand Slam, and one year removed from a reminder that it won’t be easy.

On the horizon is a chance to join Jack Nicklaus as the only players to win three different majors at age 23. In the past was his last time leading a major, when he let a five-shot lead get away from him on the back nine a year ago at Augusta National. All that mattered to him was the present. Spieth did his part on an extraordinary day of scoring in the British Open, capping off his 5-under 65 by seizing on a good break and making a 20-foot birdie putt on the 18th hole for a three-shot lead over Matt Kuchar, who did his best to keep pace with a 66.

Spieth had one of seven rounds at 65 or lower at Royal Birkdale, which was never more vulnerable with a light breeze and a clear sky until the final hour. He was warming up on the range when Branden Grace shot 62, the lowest 18-hole score over 157 years of major championships. Spieth then delivered his second bogey-free round of the week in which he never came seriously close to a bogey.

“Pretty stress-free,” Spieth said. “On a Saturday with a lead in a major, that’s as good as I can ask for.”

He was at 11-under 199, breaking by six shots the 54hole record at Royal Birkdale that Tom Watson set in 1983. Not only did that last birdie give him a three-shot lead, no one else was closer than six shots.

This will be Spieth’s third time taking the lead into the final round of a major. He led by four at the Masters two years ago and won by that margin. More recent was a one-shot lead at Augusta to start the final round, a five-shot lead at the turn and a quadruple-bogey on the 12th hole that cost him another green jacket.