Spieth out to eclipse all-time greats with career slam, aged 24
Open winner’s ‘final goal’ is to be youngest man to achieve feat next month, writes James Corrigan
While the golf world was still coming to terms with Jordan Spieth’s Open victory and debating whether he had staged the greatest finish in the majors, the protagonist, himself, was looking forward, not backward.
“My last goal now is to try to complete a career grand slam at the [US] PGA in two weeks’ time,” Spieth said.
He is 24 on Thursday and is talking about a “last goal” at an age when most professionals have not even secured their playing privileges on the major tours. Perhaps that says it all about a remarkable character who finds himself deep in Tiger Woods territory. Spieth is remaining faithful to his previously stated declaration that the comparison is “not appropriate and necessary”. But he also will know that after Royal Birkdale it is irresistible and inevitable.
Butch Harmon, Woods’s coach for eight of his 14 majors, has labelled Spieth “Superman”; although, such is the precocity, “Superboy” might be more apt.
Consider that only Jack Nicklaus has been younger to win three different majors. In this sense, Spieth has already eclipsed Woods and, in Charlotte, he will have the opportunity to eclipse them all. Nicklaus was his usual humble self in ranking Spieth’s feats as a 23-year-old above his.
“Much is being said about the fact Jordan and I were able to win three legs of the grand slam before the age of 24,” Nicklaus said. “But if you look, he’s won 11 tournaments and I had only won eight before I turned 24.
“If you look at his victory total and the way he won this Open, Jordan has shown an amazing maturity for someone so young. It was a great display of guts, determination and skill.”
For a Texan in a hurry, Spieth appreciates the time is now and that he will never again have the chance to displace Woods as the youngest man to complete the grand slam. Only five have got the full set anyway – Woods, Nicklaus, Gary Player, Ben Hogan and Gene Sarazen – but Spieth has a one-time shot to go to the top of that list.
He would emulate Player in winning his first four majors at each of the majors, and, indeed, do so in chronological calendar order, which would make the milestone only seem that much more fantastical.
Except Spieth is not even the favourite for Quail Hollow. The 7,442-yarder is regarded as suiting the big-hitters, including world No1 Dustin Johnson and Rory Mcilroy, the latter having won there twice and finished runner-up on another occasion. In contrast, Spieth’s one visit to the Wells Fargo Championship, the regular PGA Tour event normally held at the Tom Fazio design, brought him a tied-32nd finish. That was in 2014. Spieth has stayed away since.
Yet it says so much about his newly re-elevated standing that even Harmon, who is now coach to Johnson, is happy to declare that Spieth will be the king to dethrone in the North Carolina powerhouse nicknamed Queen City.
“Jordan has the heart of a lion and is going to be hard to beat,” Harmon said. “I can’t say he is ‘Tigeresque’ because there is really only one Tiger Woods, but he is starting to perform like Tiger. Every time he gets out of position, he either pitches it in or gets up and down. After a while, this isn’t luck – this is talent.” That last remark from Harmon was pointed. There has been a growing perception that Spieth’s back-to-back majors as a 21-year-old in 2015 were almost flukey. He did not live up to that level of performance last season and before Birkdale, many critics were unconvinced, looking at his tie for 11th at the Masters and his tie for
35th at the US Open.
There was a certain snobbishness at work in this under-rating, as there always is when some of the others are considered the superior ball-strikers. Player is adamant that Spieth has shown the rest what truly counts.
“We are tired of hearing commentators saying this pro is a superstar of the future because he hits it so far,” the South African said. “The putter is the master – that is where the real power is. And I’m reluctant to say this, but maybe Jordan is the best putter that I’ve ever seen.”
It is not just the magic wand, however, but the astute golfing brain. Harmon believes that Spieth could do his job – and teach them all a lesson. “There are people who play competitive golf and think they’re good, but what they can learn from Jordan’s performance is that there are no pictures on the scorecard,” Harmon said. “There are little boxes and you write numbers in them – it doesn’t matter how you get there.
“True, people had started to express their doubts, but he has proved at Royal Birkdale that he really is something special and I believe that when he gets home he’ll take off his shirt and he will be wearing a Superman outfit underneath. He’s that good.”
Of course, if Spieth had been required to draw a picture of how he arrived at his bogey on the 13th he would not have been able to fit it on the average canvas, never mind a scorecard. In taking a complex, and, irritatingly lengthy, drop from an unplayable lie on the right of the par four, he played his third from the driving range.
Nicklaus was stunned by the intelligence. While most would have been in a blind panic – having already lost a three-shot lead to Matt Kuchar – Spieth coolly picked the best option from the jumble of the rule book.
“I don’t know if I would have figured out to go over to the driving range for that shot,” Nicklaus said. “That was an unbelievable decision and an unbelievable five. I believe Jordan’s bogey at the 13th was the key.”
So, where does this end? Ernie Els, who knows a thing or two about Mr Woods, is completely willing to make the connection. “He can go up to Tiger’s 14-mark in the majors,” Els said. “When you get on a roll like that, guys start knowing that you know how to win, almost like Tiger where people can maybe feel like they can’t do it against Jordan.”
Spieth will play at next week’s WGC Bridgestone Invitational in Akron, Ohio, before the USPGA. He somehow managed to turn an Open crisis into an award-winning drama. The most memorable act of his career might soon follow.
‘I believe that Jordan wears a Superman outfit beneath his shirt’