Chance at history awaits Spieth at PGA Championship

TULSA, Okla. — Jordan Spieth has a chance to accomplish golf. Allow him to explain. “You feel like you kind of accomplished golf,” he said Wednesday. “when you win a career grand slam.”

Ah, right, that accomplishment. What an accomplishment it would be. The list of those who’ve accomplished that accomplishment is short, exclusive and contains a collective 281 career PGA Tour wins.

The career grand slam — meaning wins at all four of golf ’s Major championships (the Masters, the U.S. Open, the British Open and the PGA Championship) — has been captured by just five golfers: Tiger Woods, Jack Niklaus, Gary Player, Ben Hogan and Gene Sarazen.

Spieth is one of three active golfers who’re one victory away

from the milestone. Rory McIlroy needs a Masters championship. Phil Mickelson has yet to win the U.S. Open.

Spieth just needs a PGA Championship win. He could leave both behind this weekend at Southern Hills in Tulsa, Okla. and turn that five-man list into a six-man list.

“It’s an elephant in the room for me,” Spieth said.

A PGA Championship win has proved elusive, though clearly not entirely out of reach for Spieth. He finished second in 2015 at Whistling Straits (Wisc.), a year in which the Texas graduate won the Masters, U.S. Open, and tied for fourth at the British Open. He finished tied for third in 2019 at Bethpage Black (N.Y.).

Asked if the career grand slam was something he legitimately cared about, or if it was just mere media fodder and fan intrigue, Spieth showed his hand.

“If you just told me I was going to win one tournament the rest of my life,” he said. “I’d say I want to win this one.”

Since he missed the cut at the Masters in April, Spieth won the RBC Heritage in April and finished runner-up at the AT&T Byron Nelson in McKinney last weekend. Ranked eighth in the world, Spieth likes where his game is at, is driving the ball further than ever before, and if it means much, has the fifth-best odds to win this weekend’s tournament.

There’s evidential proof in recent years that the 28-year-old’s hot stretch bodes well for his play this week at Southern Hills, too.

He won the Valero Texas Open last April, then finished tied for third at the Masters a week later. A second-place finish at the Charles Schwab Challenge last May rolled into back-to-back top 20 finishes and a runner-up at the British Open. A third-place finish at the 2018 Houston Open led into a third-place finish at the Masters just seven days afterward.

“It does feel good coming into here,” Spieth said. “But there were some parts of the game that I learned from last week that needed a little bit more sharpening than what I had worked on, and that’s what I’m trying to do over these few days before tomorrow morning.”

Spieth will tee off at 8:11 a.m. today as one-third of a super group that includes Woods and McIlroy, the seventh-ranked golfer in the world and a four-time major champ.

“I know it’s obviously great for golf,” Spieth said. “But selfishly it’s pretty exciting to be able to play these events growing up with the guy that you idolized.”

He’ll join the guy he idolized for 36 holes of golf from Thursday to Friday.

He could join him in the record books by Sunday.

“It would be pretty cool, wouldn’t it?” he mused. “I think it would be pretty cool.”