Spieth refuses to rest on laurels
Masters champ hoping a bit of local knowledge will be the difference
UNIVERSITY PLACE, Wash. — In more restful moments at his Dallas home, Jordan Spieth is fond of slipping on his Masters green jacket, just to remind himself that it is there. After all, nothing quite surpasses the sensation of kicking back on the couch and luxuriating in the silky cut of golf’s most coveted garment.
“It’s at my home right now, and it’s perfectly content there,” the young Texan said, as if referring to a cherished pet. “Why wouldn’t I put it on, to be honest with you?”
The memory of a four-day stretch at Augusta in which he obliterated the field, swaggering home with an 18-under-par total matched only by Tiger Woods in 1997, could be a useful crutch as Spieth goes in search of his second major title at age 21.
He has arrived here on the outskirts of Seattle dwelling not upon the grisly day when he shot 83 on this quirky Chambers Bay course, failing even to qualify for the match play portion of the 2010 U.S. Amateur, but entertaining only the notion of U.S. Open glory and an unprecedented calendar grand slam.
“I have a chance to make history in many ways,” Spieth said. “You can’t win a grand slam unless you win the first, so I’m the only one with that opportunity this year. I’m going to see if I can put myself in contention. If I didn’t do anything for the rest of the year, I’d be pretty frustrated.”
What other 21-year-old talks like this? Who else could deliver this sentiment so sincerely and not be brushed off as monumentally conceited?
Spieth, though, is that rare species, in that he is apparently irreproachable. You try to find a skeleton in his closet and all you come away with is another gluttonous helping of home-baked Southern charm.
So preternatural is his poise, it is little wonder the sponsors are drooling over him. His matineeidol looks are plastered across the front cover of this month’s Golf Digest. His off-course income conservatively is estimated at $30 million US a year.
The money, though, is the least of Spieth’s precocious achievements. Beyond the bounty, he has helped make it a reality of the post-Tiger age that a superstar in golf can be both grounded and approachable. With every victory — and he has savoured four of them in the past 17 months alone — Spieth dedicates part of it to his younger sister Ellie, diagnosed with a neurological disorder that puts her on the autistic spectrum. His main preoccupation in the afterglow of his record-equalling performance at Augusta was about buying Ellie a souvenir.
Spieth, aptly for one whose childhood tutor was Ben Crenshaw, has been brought up as a young gentleman of honour. He became the first Masters champion since Zach Johnson in 2005 to bother turning up for the following week’s tournament at Hilton Head, S.C., simply because he had given the organizers his word. Not only did he compete, he also threw in a second-round 62, one shy of the course record, for good measure.
His credentials at Chambers Bay are heightened by an affinity with this stretch of Pacific coastline. Beyond his experience on this week’s course, Spieth won his second U.S. Junior title at the Gold Mountain course in nearby Bremerton. Plus, his caddy, Michael Greller, is a Washington state native who knows every vicissitude of the Chambers Bay layout.
Pressed on whether local knowledge could be an advantage, Spieth said: “I think it’s going to help with driving the ball, sightlines, and an understanding that when things get firm he’s going to know where the ball would run off to a little better.”