Spieth takes fifth swing at Grand Slam win
Jordan Spieth is 0 for 4 in his bid to become the sixth member of the prestigious Grand Slam of golf club.
Spieth, 27, touched down in South Carolina this week to take another swing at the career slam, which comprises winning the British Open, Masters, U.S. Open and the as-yet elusive PGA Championship.
He finished in a tie for third in the 2021 Masters and rolls into the PGA Championship with more momentum than previous bids at the Slam.
“As we get into the weekend, if I’m able to work my way into contention, I think it’s something that’ll obviously be asked and come up,” Spieth said Tuesday, “and it’s something that I certainly want.”
Spieth suggested he’s not thinking about the Slam when he takes the first tee Thursday afternoon. He also said there was no true “turning point” in his mind when his golf game took off again.
But a pair of top 5 finishes at Phoenix and Pebble Beach seemed to set Spieth straight.
Since then, he won the Valero Open, competed at the Masters and tied for ninth at the Byron Nelson last week.
The Ocean Course at Kiawah Island Golf Resort looms as one of the more unique challenges and is the longest major in history at 7,876 yards. Spieth said Tuesday his focus is not on a score through 18 holes, but patience from one shot to the next.
“I think picking clubs off tees, picking lines off tees, are going to be important, but I would have liked to have seen the golf course a few times. It just wasn’t a possibility this year for me. Going to need to do a lot of good work the next two days,” Spieth said, repeating the expectation that wind will play a major role all four days of the PGA Championship.
“I think getting on to those greens in regulation is going to be very important this week, and inevitably windy conditions being on the water.”
“This week I think it’ll be more about hitting middle of greens and then taking advantage of par-fives.”
If Spieth accomplished that goal, he could well be in line to become the sixth golfer to claim the sport’s slam along with Tiger Woods, Ben Hogan, Gene Sarazen, Gary Player and Jack Nicklaus.
“Majors are what we’re trying to peak for,” said Spieth. “I feel like I’ll have a lot of chances at this tournament, and if I just focus on trying to take advantage of this golf course, play it the best I can and kind of stay in the same form tee to green I’ve been in, all I can ask for is a chance.”
SLOW GOING AT KIAWAH >> The prospect of slow fivehour plus rounds looms large at this week’s PGA Championship, which will be played on the longest course in major history at Kiawah Island starting on Thursday.
The Atlantic oceanside layout can be stretched to a monster 7,876-yards — and the back nine to more than 4,000 — though officials are likely to set it up somewhat shorter each day by moving forward some of the tees on holes playing into the wind.
The PGA of America will try to get threesomes around in four hours, 47 minutes in the first two rounds. Kerry Haigh, the man in charge of course set-up for the PGA, hopes that allowing distancemeasuring devices to be used by caddies for the first time will help speed up play.
But he is fully aware of the challenges in preventing rounds from slowing to a snail’s pace, especially if the wind blows as strongly as forecast and causes players to spend more time than usual trying to gauge club and shot selection.
“The length of the course itself on its own I don’t think is that big of an issue as if the wind blows,” Haigh said.
“Obviously then it takes a little more time to determine clubs, but the distance-measuring devices will certainly help that potentially. We’ll be out monitoring the pace of play as we do every PGA Championship and very hopeful that the pace will be reasonable.”
The final tee time on Thursday and Friday is 2.42 p.m. ET while sunset is at 8.15 p.m., which suggests the late starters won’t have much daylight left by the time they finish.