YOUNG GOLFERS BOAST MAJOR TALENT
Spieth leads impressive pack of players well-equipped to contend for titles
SHEBOYGAN, WIS. It’s a foursome of young American golfers that has plenty of experience battling each other, even though they all graduated from high school in 2011.
Jordan Spieth, Justin Thomas, Daniel Berger and Ollie Schniederjans are familiar foes from years of junior and college events. In March, they joined for a practice round in Texas at the PGA Tour’s Valspar Championship, which Spieth went on to win.
This week, three of the four — Spieth, Thomas and Berger — are going for a major at the PGA Championship at Whistling Straits.
Spieth is the most decorated of the bunch. He and Tiger Woods are the only players to win multiple U.S. Junior Amateur titles. At 16, and then 17, Woods made the cut in the PGA Tour’s HP Byron Nelson Championship. At 19, he started his pro career with no status and ended the year as the youngest American ever to play in The Presidents Cup.
Spieth has five Tour titles, four this year, including major victories in the Masters and U.S. Open. This week at the PGA Championship, he’ll try and join Ben Hogan and Woods as the only players in the modern era to win three majors in a season.
Spieth’s success also is providing confidence for those he grew up playing against. In their minds, seeing as they’ve beaten Spieth in junior and college events, if Spieth can elevate his game to win at golf ’s highest level, they can, too.
“When they say (my success) gives them confidence, that’s almost an insult to me,” Spieth, 22, said with a sly smile on his face. “So now that I’m playing good, they’re like, ‘Oh, I can play good, too.’ I’m kidding.
“They want to beat me as bad as I want to beat the next guy, and it’s cool to see the transition that these guys in my class, that we grew up playing together since we were 12, 13 years old, all being able to make this transition together. It’s amazing that you have so many guys now that have either Web.com or PGA Tour or European Tour status from our class. It just speaks to what we’ve all done for each other growing up, pushing each other to get better.”
Justin Rose, the 2013 U.S. Open champion, was once a phenom himself, tying for fourth in the 1998 British Open at 17. At this year’s Open Championship on the Old Course in St Andrews, Scotland, Rose saw golf ’s future.
Four amateurs not only con- tended for the silver medal that goes to the low amateur but also contended for the Claret Jug.
Jordan Niebrugge, 22, a seniorto-be at Oklahoma State, tied for sixth — the first amateur to finish in the top 10 since 2008. Paul Dunne, 22, who fell to a tie for 30th, was the first amateur in 88 years to lead the Open after 54 holes. Ashley Chesters, 26, tied for 12th. As did Schniederjans, 22, who joined Woods and Phil Mick- elson as the only amateurs in the last 50 years to make the cut in the U.S. Open and British Open in the same year. He turned pro the week after the British Open and has two top-25 finishes in three starts.
“That’s a pretty good snapshot of what’s coming and guys being able to handle it a lot better,” Rose said. “I feel that when I did it in ’98 it was out of the blue and it seemed like there was more tension on it because of that, whereas now it’s happening more regularly. Doesn’t seem so far out in left field.
“The guys are definitely more equipped for sure.”
Rose played the final round of this year’s Masters alongside Spieth, doing everything he could to pull even with the kid from Dallas. But Spieth won the green jacket and Rose was reminded of a force in a red shirt on Sundays who used to dominate the game.
“When Tiger was doing it, you thought there’s no way we’ll ever see this again in our lifetime. It was unprecedented to see a young player go out and win majors and make it look so easy,” Rose said. “Here we are 20 years later, and Spieth and the next generation is stepping up to those sorts of feats.
“It’s pretty cool.”