History will have to wait
GRAND SLAM: Spieth’s chase of three straight majors undone by rare missed putt
ST. ANDREWS, Scotland — When it was over, Jordan Spieth stood off the 18th green and applauded the fans who had spent much of their day applauding him.
They came by the thousands on a wet and chilly day, lured by cheap tickets and the chance to see history. Packed into huge grandstands and jammed 10 deep against each other on the finishing fairways, they waited in the rain, urging the young American to deliver for them once again.
A 50-footer that curled from left to right before dropping gently in the hole for birdie on No. 16 set the stage. Surely there would be more magic to come and Spieth would enter the record books as the first player to win his first three majors of the year since Ben Hogan did it 62 years ago.
On the 17th tee, Spieth was thinking much the same thing. A par on the brutal Road Hole and a birdie on the short 18th would give him the British Open’s Claret Jug to add to those won at the Masters and U.S. Open.
It would also put him on the brink of golf immortality: one PGA Championship win away from the Grand Slam no modern player has ever won.
“Par-birdie is a perfect way to finish here,” Spieth said. “And that would get the job done.”
The par-4 Road Hole was playing so long into the rain and wind that Spieth couldn’t reach the green in two. No matter, because he plopped his pitch eight feet from the hole.
“If I stood on 17th tee box and you told me I had that putt for par on the hole,” Spieth said later, “I would have certainly taken it.”
Almost shockingly, he missed it right. The best putter in the game didn’t make the one that mattered the most.
There would be no Claret Jug for Spieth, no Grand Slam for golf. A misplaced drive on the 18th left him a final putt from the Valley of Sin that barely missed, ending Spieth’s chances of getting in what would have been a four-man playoff.
Zach Johnson would go on to win, giving the Open a fine champion.
But the sense that something bigger was lost wasn’t just felt by the fans who bought tickets to sit in the rain on what was looking to be a magical day.
Not since Tiger Woods’ chances evaporated in a rain-blown 81 in the third round at Muirfield in 2002 had a player had a shot at three straight majors. They’re so hard to win that British bookies would probably make the odds long that any player will have a chance again in the next 13 years.
Spieth, 21, had said a day earlier that he would be playing to win, not to finish third. He understood the magnitude of the moment and instead of being overwhelmed by it, he choose to embrace it.
On another day, the 3-under 69 he shot might have been enough. But this was a day where Johnson shot a 66 and Marc Leishman matched him shot for shot.
Louis Oosthuizen had a 69 of his own to make it a three-way playoff that Johnson won.
As it turned out, this wasn’t a tournament Spieth lost. It was one that someone else won.
“I’m very pleased with the way I played,” Spieth said.
“I think the way that I played this week and especially today would have won the U.S. Open by more than just a shot. I didn’t play as well there. It’s just that’s the kind of golf that was played by the field this week, it just took some special golf. Whoever comes out the champion, that’s a hell of a major.”
Spieth will go to the PGA Championship in Wisconsin in a few weeks, where he’ll be the favourite. Golf has a new superstar in the 21-year-old and nothing that happened in what became the longest Open championship changes that.