Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
THE CLARET
Spieth echoes car-park king Seve in rollercoaster finish that puts him one Major away from the Slam
HE is the youngest Open winner since Seve Ballesteros in 1979 and the great man would have loved it.
After the car-park champion, the practiceground champion.
What was supposed to be an ordinary stroll to triumph turned into an extraordinary rollercoaster ride to a remarkable victory.
The demons looked to have Spieth in their grip when he took a penalty drop on the range 100 yards from the 13th fairway – beyond a fleet of trucks – and gave up the lead to playing partner Matt Kuchar.
Instead, he faced those demons, beat them away, and played the final five holes in five under to lift the Claret Jug. It was one of the most astonishing finishing bursts in the Championship’s history, in golf history.
The Texan, less than a week shy of his 24th birthday, is now one Major away from a career Grand Slam and this buried the nightmarish memories of his collapse at Augusta in 2016.
More than most sports, golf’s trickiest terrain stretches between the ears.
No one knows that better than Spieth, who held a fiveshot lead going into the back nine of the Masters last year and blew it.
That afternoon, as he dumped a second ball in the water on the 12th hole, he turned to his caddie Michael Greller and said: “Michael, looks like it is falling apart.”
There were moments when he could have uttered the same words here, the most appropriate coming when he carved a drive into tangled wilderness on that 13th hole.
What followed took an age and a heck of a lot of explaining but, basically, he declared an unplayable lie and ended up taking his third shot from the practice ground.
It looked like peak meltdown but it proved to be one of the most protracted and bizarre turning points in recent Open memory. Spieth Ted Ray (Eng)
Bobby Jones (US) Gene Sarazen (US) Henry Cotton (US) Tom Weiskopf (US) Tiger Woods (US) Rory Mcilroy (N Ire) Jordan Spieth (US) escaped with a bogey, almost holed his tee shot on the next, and rolled in an eagle putt on 15.
“Go get that,” he shouted to Greller as he bounced off towards the next.
The momentum was with him, the adrenaline hot like lava. He birdied the 16th and 17th, charging to the winning line in a blaze of glory.
It was astonishing stuff and unexpected drama on a day that was supposed to be a Spieth procession.
Instead, the gap between him and Kuchar narrowed and closed, mainly thanks to Spieth struggling terribly with his putter for the first two-thirds of his round.
As he stood on the 13th tee, he had dropped three shots to be level with Kuchar on eight under.
It had hardly been a duel in the sun, more like an unseemly scrap in the squally showers... until Spieth suddenly found a super-charge.
A routine par at the last as Kuchar bogeyed actually meant Spieth, on 12 under, had won by three shots and his final round, like the previous three, was sub-70.
Spieth, who led this tournament at the end of every day, has an Xfactor about him. His comeback from the brink of complete collapse was as classy as his victory speech.
But more than classy, it also marked him out to be the fiercest competitor in golf.
To scramble out of an abyss of doubt and win in swaggering style is the mark of a true, great champion.
Just like Seve, Jordan Spieth is exactly that.