Finish has players eager to return
Winning, or rallying and falling just short, keeps competitive fires burning.
AUGUSTA, GA. — Jordan Spieth wasn’t supposed to win the Masters and darn near did.
Rory McIlroy was supposed to win the Masters and didn’t, or at least that’s what they’ll be grumbling about back in Belfast. Not entirely fair, since Rory started the final round three shots behind eventual winner Patrick Reed, but those are the expectations with such a major talent.
Amazing how this tournament always manages to write
its own script, one that’s kept secret to everyone involved, even the players, until the last golden moments of another Sunday afternoon in spring.
Can we stop for just a moment and recognize that Spieth was nine shots off the lead with one round to play?
For nearly four hours the 2015 Masters champion could do no wrong, racing up the leaderboard with seven birdies in his first 13 holes and threatening to complete the biggest comeback in tournament history. Then, on the final hole, Spieth’s tee shot clipped a tree
and dropped like a brick some 30 yards short of where the fairway even begins. Nobody saw that coming. Nobody ever sees any of this coming.
“With eight people ahead of me starting the day, to get that much help and shoot a fantastic round was nearly impossible,” said Spieth, who finished with a bogey and an 8-under-par 64 to place third. “But I almost pulled off the impossible.
“When I finished and I looked at the leaderboard, I could have been in the lead by two or I could have been down by four and neither one would have surprised me.”
Sounds like he had fun, if nothing else, and that’s one of the most endearing qualities about the men who consistently finish near the top of the Masters. It’s a smaller field than normal, and it’s a tournament played every year on the same familiar ground. No wonder the same guys keep coming back for more, expecting the best and deflecting the worst because the impossible really does seem within reach around here.
Rickie Fowler, for instance, must trust that his Masters moment will come. On Sunday he was the runner-up, one stroke behind Reed, and he’s finished second in the U.S. Open and the British Open, too. How could he lose to a player like Reed? And, similarly, how could Spieth get overtaken a few years ago by a player like Danny Willett, who has missed two Masters cuts since then?
Nothing to do but accept one’s role in Masters mythology and pray that it all turns your way the next time.
“Obviously I’m happy for Patrick,” said Rickie, whose closing rounds of 65 and 67 gave him a shot at pulling off a comeback almost as astonishing as Spieth’s. “We’ve played a lot of junior golf together and we’ve been on some great teams together, Ryder Cup and Presidents Cup. It would have been more fun to beat him, but I’m happy with what we did here.”
Clearly, these guys expect to be back in the mix again, and it’s good to have so many American players who feel that way.
The last three U.S. Opens have been won by U.S. players — Brooks Koepka, Dustin Johnson and Spieth. Same for the last British Open, won by Spieth, and the last two PGA Championships, won by Justin Thomas and Jimmy Walker.
What really stood out on Sunday, however, was the way that the crowds got behind McIlroy, who needed this win to complete a career Grand
Slam of major titles. Reed noticed also that most of the analysts he listened to Sunday morning on the Golf Channel predicted that McIlroy would rocket to the top rather than turning in the lackluster 74 that he did.
“That’s another thing that played into my hand,” Reed said. “Not only did it fuel my fire a little bit, but also it takes the pressure off of me and adds it back to him.”
That’s the psychological side of this thing, and it counts for as much as any individual player wants it to count. Sometimes, though, it’s the nuances of this course that contribute the most to selecting a winner.
Remember Fred Couples’ tee shot hanging on the bank on No. 12 in 1992 rather than rolling back into the creek? Something similar went Reed’s way on Sunday, with a poorly hit 7-iron approach shot to No. 13 sticking to the bank rather than sinking in the pond that fronts the green. Reed was able to save par, and that might just be what saved the day.
Compare that to Spieth’s final drive clipping what he called “the last little limb.” Those towering pines on No. 18 will always be a problem, just as they were for Justin Rose in last year’s playoff loss to Sergio Garcia, and that’s one of the final gauntlets that every Masters champion must run.
Reed will be remembered for getting through that narrow chute cleanly, knowing a par would win the tournament, and for two-putting on the kind of slope where a simple tap can send the ball on the scariest journey.
“It definitely wasn’t easy,” Reed said. “It’s just a way of God basically saying, ‘Let’s see if you have it. Everyone knows you have it physically with the talent, but do you have it mentally? Can you handle the ups and downs throughout the round?’”
God does not set the pins for the final round of the Masters, but Augusta National’s all-powerful members do, and the kind of finish they got on Sunday is the kind of finish they want.
A stampede to the finish line, with somebody always coming up on the outside. It shows who is truly custom-made to fit that green jacket, and it makes everybody, winners and losers alike, eager to come back and try it again.