Golf: Spieth purges his demons

Jordan Spieth did not merely triumph at The Open, said James Corrigan in The Daily Telegraph. The “remarkable” Texan also purged the demons that have “stalked him” since last year’s “infamous” Masters, when he lost dramatically after being five shots ahead. On Sunday, too, he appeared to be in “free fall”: on the 13th hole, he hit a wayward drive 120 yards off the fairway and into the rough. But in perhaps “the greatest turnaround” in any of golf’s majors, Spieth rescued himself, and 90 minutes later he was lifting the Claret Jug. He is now the second man ever to win three different majors before his 24th birthday.

The 13th hole was a half-hour “miniepic”, said Tom Fordyce on BBC Sport online. Spieth hit the ball so far astray that it cleared a “long line of humpbacked dunes”; so far that when it was first apparently found, “it turned out to be the wrong one”. Yet, miraculously, he escaped with only a bogey, then went on a remarkable charge: birdie, eagle, birdie, birdie. That “ornithological sequence” marks the point when Spieth’s “status as golf’s prodigy was restored”, said Paul Hayward in The Daily Telegraph. In 2015, when he won the Masters and the US Open, he was hailed as the sport’s future. Polite and friendly, he was “just about everything America wants its golfers to be”. But after his “horrible experience” at the 2016 Masters, that status seemed to be in jeopardy. Now he has been “set free”.

The Open may be England’s elite golf competition, said Ian Ladyman in the Daily Mail, but it has now gone 25 years without an English winner. This time, the only “domestic challenger” who produced a performance of note was the “relatively unheralded” Matthew Southgate. When he was diagnosed with testicular cancer two years ago, at the age of 26, it was unclear whether he’d ever play golf again. But on Sunday, in just his third major, Southgate was unflappable, and finished joint sixth. He now looks ready for “a move up to the next level”.