SUPER SPIETH
Golf’s new star makes Masters history at 21
JORDAN SPIETH confirmed his arrival as golf’s new wonder boy by smashing a 39-year-old record for the lowest score over two rounds at Augusta.
The 21-year-old American followed his remarkable first-round 64 with an spellbinding 66 to take an iron grip on the Masters, a total of 130 breaking the previous best set by Ray Floyd in 1976.
But for a missed putt from six feet on the final green it could have been better still, yet Spieth still ended five shots clear of Charley Hoffman, also equalling the record for the largest halfway lead shared by Herman Keiser and Jack Nicklaus.
Spieth said: ‘It’s special to be out front. It’s definitely going to be more challenging and I am going to have be OK with a bogey or two.’
It left the other challengers only to hope Spieth blows up. Ernie Els said: ‘If the wind keeps blowing and the nerves get going — I don’t want to wish badly on anyone — but you never know.’
Even when he missed, he missed cute
MOMENTARILY, he looked his age. Having struck his second shot 163 yards to within six feet of the pin, Jordan Spieth stood over his ball on the 18th green.
History was assured. He wasn’t going to three-putt from there, so whatever happened this would be the lowest 36-hole score in the history of the Masters.
He wanted it to be more than that, though. The best it could be. The exuberance of youth was kicking in. Spieth missed. For the first time around Augusta yesterday, he made a mild misstep. He wheeled away, hopped a little, almost coltish in his frustration. He marched back to his ball, prepared to tap it in. Except it wasn’t a real tap-in. There was a bit still to do. And at that point, Spieth checked. He stepped away. He marked his ball. He let Henrik Stenson play. He did the sensible thing. Spieth always does the sensible thing. That is part of his wonder.
Some might think that makes him boring. It doesn’t make him boring. To shoot 14 under, the lowest two- round score at Augusta, and equal to the best 36-hole score recorded at a major championship, isn’t boring. We may be watching a sporting phenomenon. A performance as breathtaking as Tiger Woods’s arrival in 1997. There will come a time when such comparisons no longer seem like hyperbole.
If Spieth repeats his achievement at the Hero World Challenge in Florida last year, perhaps, when he led from wire to wire and recorded a score of 26 under par. Those numbers are unlikely though. As the tournament committee set out ever more fiendish pin placements in the next two days to preserve the dignity of the famous green- ery, his scores are bound to fall.
Against that, it will be a lot harder to chase Spieth’s total than just maintain it. Modern courses have, of course, been Tiger-proofed before — but in the short term Augusta may need to be Spieth-proofed, too, if his scoring stays stable. This was his sixth round as a professional here and his worst score is level par. He has been in the top three players in five of those six, too.
‘I was a bit out of my comfort zone, at the moment on the 18th,’ Spieth confirmed. ‘I was going to have to work around Henrik’s line — and I just thought if I step away I am definitely going to make this putt, so that was the only way I could miss.
‘I have to work to control those things the next two days. If I can shoot 14 under then a lot of other players could shoot 14 under, so I have to be ready for that and to match their scores now. The stress levels can get pretty high. Still, it’s pretty cool any time you can lead the Masters and to set a record is awesome.’
Billy Horschel, Spieth’s playing partner, had wished for an imaginary tape recorder at the end of the first day. Horschel deadpanned that he needed a device that replayed the message ‘Nice hole, Jordan’ as they stood on every tee. Nothing changed overnight. Many had Augusta pegged as the venue where Rory McIlroy would complete his personal grand slam in 2015; instead, this Masters may go down as the moment where he was placed in the threatening shadow of a young Texan gunslinger, now in the vanguard of an American revival.
Up ahead of Spieth, Ernie Els laboured valiantly to stay in touch. It was a salutary reminder of the need for good timing in any sporting career. At the age of 25, as McIlroy is now, Els won his first major, the 1994 US Open. He was considered capable of dominating the sport for the next decade, and he won it again in 1997. By that time, however, a 21-year- old called Tiger Woods had announced his arrival at the 1997 Masters. The era of Els never materialised.
McIlroy may have achieved more and younger than Els, and Spieth may not be the ice-cold winning machine Woods was at his age — but he has done a damn good impression of one over the first two days. Already in the record books, Spieth has many more landmarks in sight these next two days. The record for birdies here stands at 25 from Phil Mickelson; Spieth already has 15.
His course management was outstanding. Spieth took Augusta on, yet remained entirely in control. It helps that he is exceptional, yet strangely unspectacular. As Graeme McDowell pointed out recently there are better drivers, better chippers, better putters — and the statistics bear this out — but none who do all three as well as Spieth. He might not have the best game; but he has the most complete.
There were tiny aberrations
yesterday — he found the pine straw twice on the back nine — but they were rare. Most of the time, he was consistency personified, picking out the best line, the best lie, the most advantageous position on the green. When he dallied with a bunker on the par-five eighth, his third shot was so perfect that he sunk a two-foot putt for birdie.
‘That was special, even for you,’ said Horschel’s caddie Micah Fugitt. It was a masterful display, the work of a wise head not a callow college boy. It isn’t just that Spieth doesn’t think like a 21-year-old. At the 15th, a par five and a good birdie opportunity, he sensibly laid up, and then made four. Even when he missed, he missed cute.
He has absorbed a lot from his mentor Ben Crenshaw, a fellow Texan and Augusta expert. Asked about ‘Ben’s advice’ on Thursday, Spieth sweetly replied: ‘Do you mean Mr Crenshaw?’ There wasn’t a hint of irony in his response.
Had he stayed in school, he would be studying for his finals right now. Instead he is fast approaching £10m in career earnings and on the brink of a first major. The next Tiger? That is a heap of pressure to drop on young shoulders. The idea that McIlroy is without a serious challenger has been truly debunked. When Spieth shot 63 to win the Australian Open at Royal Sydney, the conditions were windy and inhospitable. McIlroy said he could have played the course a hundred times in those circumstances and not made Spieth’s score. Geoff Ogilvy claimed it may well have been the finest 18 holes of golf seen in Australia.
Where do Spieth’s first 36 holes stand in the annals at Augusta? Ray Floyd played the previous best 36 holes — 13 under par — in 1976. Spieth now has that record, as well as that of the youngest player to hold the 18-hole lead. Like McIlroy’s US Open victory at Congressional in 2011 this could see a grand rewriting of the record books. He has barely put a foot wrong. Nice hole, Jordan? Seriously, dude, name one that wasn’t.
7 SPIETH has birdied seven of his eight par fives, the joint best total with
Ernie Els