Rich pickings for superb Spieth
JORDAN SPIETH ended a remarkable season in fitting style with victory in the Tour Championship to secure the Fedex Cup title and a massive payday in Atlanta.
Spieth carded a closing 69 at east Lake to finish nine under par, four shots clear of Henrik Stenson, Justin Rose and Danny Lee.
The first prize of £977,000 and bonus of £6.5million took Spieth’s earnings f or the Tour season to more than £14million and, with Jason Day finishing joint 10th, it also took the 22-year-old above the Australian and Rory McIlroy to the top of the world rankings.
Spieth took a one-shot lead over Stenson into yesterday’s final round and had doubled his advantage by the turn, although the 22-year-old was not having things all his own way.
The Masters and US Open champion, who was also f ourth i n The Open and second in the USPGA, initially moved two shots clear by holing from 10 feet for birdie on the second, but then failed to get up and down following a poor approach to the fifth and followed that error with a three-putt bogey on the sixth.
Af te r depositing the offending ball into the lake which surrounds the green, Spieth quickly regained his composure and holed from 20 feet on the eighth as playing partner Stenson made bogey after finding trees off the tee and a bunker with hi s approach.
It looked as though Stenson would reduce the gap to a single shot after l eaving himself a tap-in for birdie on the par-five ninth, only for Spieth to hole from 18 feet.
The final pair both bogeyed the 10th before Spieth, who had described his short game as ‘magic’ on Friday, produced more evidence to back up such claims.
With Stenson again within a few feet of the hole on the 11th, Spieth holed a curling birdie putt from 45 feet to maintain his two-shot cushion, Stenson looking at the American with a mixture of admiration, resignation and no doubt more than a little irritation.
A bogey from Stenson on the 12th then eased the pressure on Spieth, who crucially saved par on the 15th from eight feet after Stenson left his long birdie attempt inches short.
Stenson had held a threeshot lead after 36 holes and his miserable weekend was capped off by a dreaded shank on the 17th which resulted in a double-bogey six, although the 39-year- old did at least hole from almost 60 feet across the 18th green for a closing birdie.