British Open
Spieth was close to having his name on that jug. No one ever came closer to the third leg of the Grand Slam since Ben Hogan.
Spieth fought back from taking four putts for a double bogey on No. 8 with back-to-back birdies. He rolled in that long birdie putt on the 16th for a share of the lead. After missing an 8-foot par putt on the tough 17th hole, Spieth needed a birdie on the closing hole to join the playoff.
“Up and down for a playoff,” was the last thing Spieth said to caddie Michael Greller from about 90 yards away. It was too far right and not quite hard enough, and it rolled to the edge of the Valley of Sin short of the green. His birdie attempt up the slope stayed inches left of the cup, and he tapped in for a 69.
“We gave it a great effort,” Spieth said.
At least he was in elite company. Arnold Palmer, Jack Nicklaus and Tiger Woods — the three biggest names in golf over the last 50 years — were the only other players to capture the Masters and U.S. Open in a bid to sweep the four professional majors in the same year. All came up short in the British Open. Spieth was the only one who had a share of the lead so deep in the final round.
“I’m going to go home and reflect,” Spieth said. “It won’t hurt too bad. It’s not like I really lost it on the last hole, and 17 was brutally challenging. I just didn’t hit a great putt there, and I just picked the wrong wedge out of the bag on 18. I made a lot of the right decisions down the stretch and certainly closed plenty of tournaments out. And this just wasn’t one of those. It’s hard to do that every single time.
“I won’t beat myself up too bad, because I do understand that.”
It took a superlative effort from Johnson, who now has two majors among his 12 PGA Tour victories.
Johnson was in tears afterward. “I’m grateful. I’m humbled,” Johnson said. “This is the birthplace of the game, and that jug means so much in sports.”
On a tense afternoon of shadows and showers on the Old Course, Johnson closed with a 6-under 66. He was the first in at 15-under 273.
Leishman, who considered giving up golf in April when his wife nearly died of a rare respiratory illness, fell out of the lead with a bogey on the 16th hole. He had a birdie putt for the win on the 18th that was wide left and gave him a 66. Oosthuizen made a 10-foot par putt on No. 17 to stay one shot behind, and he delivered a clutch moment of his own with a wedge to 5 feet for birdie and a 69 to join the playoff.
It was the first British Open playoff since Stewart Cink beat Tom Watson at Turnberry in 2009.
Johnson matched Oosthuizen’s birdie on the first hole and pulled ahead with another birdie on No. 2. Both made bogey on the 17th — Oosthuizen by missing a 5-foot putt to tie Johnson — and the South African had one last chance. Oosthuizen, who won the British Open when it last was at St. Andrews in 2010, had a 12-foot birdie putt to force sudden death. It touched the left side of the cup and kept going, and Johnson was introduced as the “champion golfer of the year.”