The seven US stars who can ruin it for Rory
THey’ve seen the last three majors fall into european hands and we all know what happened at the Ryder Cup at Gleneagles last September. On this side of the pond, therefore, this eagerly anticipated 79th Masters is not all about whether Rory McIlroy can create history, or if Tiger Woods can chip any more.
At the site of the only major they hold, it’s about whether American golf can start restoring some pride.
For the nation that hosts three of the four majors and provides a home to most of the world’s best on the PGA Tour, it would be unthinkable for the green jacket to be slipped on to a foreign body as well. What a not- so-grand slam that would represent.
Fortunately, or worryingly perhaps for those with european interests at heart, there are signs that the American beast is stirring. Look beyond the Tiger smokescreen and there are not just one or two who could trouble Rory this week but a potentially magnificent seven.
Leading the charge are the cleareyed 21-year-old Texan Jordan Spieth and the reformed party animal Dustin Johnson. Put them together and you have the perfect golfer. The former has the brain to win the Masters and the latter the muscle.
We’ve seen enough in recent months to suggest that each has now acquired enough of the other’s main quality to survive the stifling atmosphere of Sunday afternoon.
Spieth will never wow anyone like Johnson off the tee but he hits it far enough. He showed that last year when he finished joint runner-up in a brilliant debut.
He’s a far better player now. It’s a rare leaderboard these days that doesn’t have his name on it. He dropped out of college 18 months ago to become the world No 809. Now fourth, he’s banked $11.5million (£7.7m) but the hunger remains. ‘Rory is the player I’m after,’ he says. ‘I want to be the No 1.’
There are clear similarities between Johnson and defending champion Bubba Watson in the way they bludgeon Augusta into submission off the tee but there the comparison ends. What’s often overlooked is that Watson also has a rare deft touch around the greens. Johnson can only win if he’s hitting them in regulation. But he can do that.
Watson doesn’t strike me as a good enough player to win three green jackets in four years — that’s the sort of strike-rate reserved for legends — but those high-faded shots into Augusta’s bone-hard greens are a priceless asset. you’d include him among the favourites.
Texas has its best crop of players since the days of Ben Hogan, Jimmy Demaret and Byron Nelson, with Patrick Reed and the under-rated Jimmy Walker joining Spieth.
If you asked most people who has won more PGA Tour events over the past two years than Lee Westwood, Paul Casey and Ian Poulter in their careers combined, Walker probably wouldn’t spring to mind. Having won five trophies in that time, he’s a contender all right.
As for Reed, you’d think a man who went to college at Augusta State would have plenty of support here but his allegedly murky past, with lurid accusations that he was kicked out of the University of Georgia for cheating and stealing from team-mates, means he’s not everyone’s cup of iced tea. But that will not bother him one iota. Which leaves Rickie Fowler and Phil Mickelson, who both pushed McIlroy so hard at the last major, the USPGA Championship. That might have been the last time Mickelson played well, until he opened with rounds of 66 and 67 at Houston last week. A three-time Masters champion and perennial contender, maybe that was all he needed.
And what of Fowler, who last year became the first to finish in the top five in all four majors but not win one? His coach Butch Harmon believes the missing piece is a touch of ruthlessness in the psyche of a genuinely nice man.
As Padraig Harrington said recently, the main problem for McIlroy is not the expectation but the long list of players who are playing really well.
Most of them are American. So forget Tiger. At the last major US stronghold, the serious yankee contenders are ready to make their stand.