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It is unfathomable that Jordan Spieth spent a whole year hanging out on this hill at Royal Birkdale to find his ball and the Claret Jug. It's as if it was last week. The 146th Open Championship was iconic, and Spieth was his epicenter. His victory at Birkdale did not recalibrate his overall trajectory, but it may have accelerated the speed at which we thought he would arrive at his destination.
Three majors at the age of 24 are heady things, and Spieth took his first run at the grand slam career last August at the PGA Championship at Quail Hollow. It will be shot next August in Bellerive, then in No. 3 next May in Bethpage. After the Open last year, it did not seem inevitable that Spieth complete the slam, but it seemed almost incomprehensible that he could continue another year without winning at all.
It's here that we are at 23 tournaments later with Spieth, though. He 's closer a few times last fall and he almost finished this year' s Masters with one of the best rounds in the history of the major championship and another green jacket. But it has become undeniable that Spieth missed the panache this year who set it in the early part of his career. There is no victory or second in the Open for the first time as a pro
Make no mistake, this is not an obituary. Spieth's career is alive and well and on the way to becoming one of the 10 greatest careers in the history of this sport. But when someone who is on this trajectory glides on 365 days without a win, you notice. He notices. Everyone notices
2018 Open
His main question – and perhaps the only one – in 2018 concerns the putter. Spieth is No. 14 in strokes from tee to green and No. 175 in strokes. While the green number tee is slightly below its norm, the put count is not even close. Up until 2018, Spieth has earned four top 10 in 17 events, a figure that would only represent half of his 2016 figure. You know, the "year of decline" that followed his heroism in 2015.
I really do not find anything of that concern, any more than Spieth.
"I have no doubt about my ability to come back to defend if the form is on, off or something indifferent," Spieth told Associated Press about The Open, which starts this week in Scotland. "I've proven to myself that I could go from two failed coupons to potentially win. It's not something that disgusts me."
However, I think that because he won at the level where he won and because of the path he followed, a drought of one year l '. Affects more than most.This is not a big problem: Tiger Woods has already lived 18 months from July 1997 to February 1999 with only one win and another 15 months from October 2003 to January 2005 with only one things happen, but because it's now a scenario, the way Spieth receives and reacts will be revealing.
And what the hell, do we even have this conversation if, say, Spieth beats Dustin Johnson in their playoffs at the 2017 North Trust? We are probably not, right? So saying that he's gone a year without winning makes a good (and real) title, but he's probably denying the success that he had at the end of last season after his Open victory. This is counterbalanced, however, by its struggles (again, relative struggles) until now in 2018.
There was a disruption of the pace. My friends think I'm crazy to think that Spieth will win 40 times on the PGA Tour. Two a year, I tell them, for 20 years. A Metronome
No one seems to have a better infrastructure to play with Spieth. Even when he "struggled" in 2016 after his five wins, two-major in 2016, he won twice again. He has scratched specific victories without his best things in general for the year because that is what he does. Now … well, now he has not done it for a while, and it seems like the metronome has been overtaken, maybe even stopped. It certainly has not been broken, but it might need a tweak or two.
There is a lost innocence that comes with time. I do not know if Spieth lived this, but I know it's hard not to do it. When you are 21 years old and naive to the way it all really works, it is easy to get lost in the canopy of your own heater for a year. It's easy to lose consciousness for months at a time. The more you get older, the more you are sober with this game and the reality of the 150 best players on the planet reaching out to the majors, the harder it becomes to tap into that prodigious self that seemed to exist apart from the harshness realities that all the world was linked. The more you start thinking about it, well, everything.
Rory McIlroy – out of habit – had an excellent quote about it recently. He said so in answer to a question about the 2007 Open (at Carnoustie) compared to the 2018 Open. He played first as an amateur, and now he will play as the winner of the major championship four times.
"I am a lot older, I hope wiser and much more experienced than my young self, but I do not 'I honestly think that Rory, 18, would have wanted the knowledge I have today. "Hui," said McIlroy at Golfweek
.The irony of wisdom and knowledge is that there are times, especially in this sport, where you could be better without it. , it's better just … playing golf.
Spieth is an old soul.This combination of old souls and innocence of youth has made a good combination during the first 140 events of his career. He's won a lot, I've won a lot, he's sort of both wise and naïve, and Spieth often acts as a 50-year-old with a 60-year-old swing in a child's body. 20 years with the imagination of a child of 10. This is part of what makes it so great.
And no Event in the world is softer for the imaginative old souls than this one, The Open. The Claret Jug is a manufacturer of magic, as maybe not everyone else, even in the sport. It crowns legends and has made it almost exclusively in recent years. So no, Spieth has not won for 12 months, and yes, there have been red flags on the course in the last six months. But perhaps – perhaps – what Spieth needs, only an old place like Royal Troon or St. Andrews … or Carnoustie can provide.
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