THE GREEN MONSTER
Spieth ties Tiger’s 18-under-par record to rule at Augusta
Jordan Spieth picks up Green Jacket after becoming first wire-to-wire winner at Masters since 1976 with record-tying 270 score.
AUGUSTA – He’s 21 years old. Really. And not since another 21-year-old named Tiger Woods has anyone this young solved the riddle of Augusta National as convincingly as Jordan Spieth.
From the time Spieth teed off Thursday until he rolled in the final putt on the 72nd hole Sunday, he waged a relentless assault on both the course and the field. When they added them up at the end, Spieth, with a fourth-round 70, tied Woods’ epic 1997 tournament for the lowest score in Masters history, 18-under par for a 72-hole total of 270.
Woods won by 12, Spieth by four over Phil Mickelson and Justin Rose. But really, it wasn’t much of a contest.
“Anyone who comes out and plays at the level that he has and how consistently he’s doing it, yeah, absolutely, I’m surprised,” Rose said. “It really shouldn’t be that easy. You just need to take your hat off and marvel at it and congratulate him, because it’s very impressive.”
Impressive, too, is how Spieth handled the win, not showing any emotion until the final putt dropped, before putting into words what it all meant to him, “arguably the greatest day of my life” to “have that jacket forever.”
Said Spieth, “This isn’t an honor that’s carried lightly,” noting Augusta “demands the highest quality on and off the course from its champions.
“I feel ready to carry that baton,” he said. “To be honest, it’s just an honor to join those names that have been on the trophy before.”
Included are a few great Texans like Ben Hogan, Byron Nelson and Ben Crenshaw, who played his last Masters this week. Gentle Ben says when he looks at Spieth, he sees Wyatt Earp, cool and calculating, “just as nice as you can be, but there is competitive fire in there.”
For example, when Spieth finished second a year ago, his swing faltering on the back nine, it seems he didn’t really like seeing Bubba Watson accepting the accolades when it could have been him.
“I was already hungry from last year having already had an opportunity and watching it slip away and watching Bubba win and everything that came with Bubba being the Masters champion, and the announcements of it, going on the shows and whatever,” Spieth admitted. “I knew I had a chance to win that tournament.”
That’s the determination he brought to Augusta, along with a hot streak of a win and two seconds in his prior two events.
From Thursday on, no one really made a run at him. His Sunday lead never dipped below three and after he went up by six by routinely draining a 20-footer on 10, it was time to call the tailor. The only anxious moment was on 16, where a two-shot swing could have reduced his fourshot lead in half.
Spieth overshot the par-3 green by 10 yards and chipped back to eight feet. Rose had a 15-footer for birdie. He missed and Spieth made, as usual, calling that the most important putt of the week.
Actually, there were many because he rolled in a Masters record 28 birdie putts. It was ironic he missed a 5-footer on 18 that would have given him the all-time scoring record because he truly put on one of the greatest putting exhibitions in recent memory.
“He doesn’t overpower the golf course but he plays the course strategically well,” Mickelson said. “He plays all the shots properly. And he has that ability to focus and see things clear when the pressure is. That’s something that you really can’t teach.”
And Spieth knows it. The kid may be humble but he isn’t hiding the fact that he’s coming after Rory McIlroy’s No. 1 ranking. And when asked about this year’s British Open at St. Andrews, he said hopefully, at that point, he may be trying for the third leg of a Grand Slam.
“Can’t win four unless you win the first, right?” he asked.
He did. In style.