The 79th edition of the Masters is now in the record books. When one looks back upon the great Masters tournaments of the 21st century, the 2015 version of golf’s first major will not jump out as a tightly contested and highly dramatic grand slam event. It was a wire-to-wire victory for someone who takes few, if any, chances. While Tiger’s 1997 tournament record aggregate was matched, there was little pure excitement during the course of Masters’ weekend. This time around, the tournament didn’t start on the back nine on Sunday afternoon.
Jordan Spieth won the Masters by shooting a first-round 8-under-par 64 to take a three-shot lead over the rest of the field. A score of 66 on Friday not only upped that margin to five strokes, but it also set marks for the lowest 36-hole score in a major at 130. A weekend of 70-70 for Spieth was more than enough for him to run away with the first major of what looks to be a Hall of Fame career. That’s pretty heady stuff for a 21-year-old who could just as easily be a senior at the University of Texas instead of the owner of golf’s prestigious green jacket.
Spieth is now in rarefied air alongside Tiger Woods and Rory McIlory in the category of youngest to ever win a major championship. At age 21 and 10 months, he is slightly older than Tiger and slightly younger that Rory at the time of his initial major win. The all-time holder of the youth movement title is Gene Sarazen who won both the U.S. Open and the PGA Championship in 1922. He was 20 years old. Sarazen would go on to win seven majors, collect the career grand slam, and do so in an era that featured Walter Hagen and Bobby Jones.
Yet Spieth is different from the other younger major titlists such as Sarazen, Woods and McIlory. All three of them lived off their ability to hit the golf ball a long way. While the Masters has a strong tendency to favor the power player, Spieth was able to parlay his rock-solid last six months of competitive golf into a victory at a major championship venue. Spieth won the Australian Open and Tiger’s Hero World Challenge this past winter, captured the Valspar in mid-March in Florida and had a couple of runner-up finishes on the PGA Tour. In the buildup to this year’s Masters, Jordan Spieth was the hottest golfer on the planet. He had been playing exceptional golf and he peaked at the perfect time.
So what now? And how intense will the pressure be upon Jordan Spieth to be a serious rival to Rory McIlory? The presumed stakes are very high.
Colin Montgomerie, a two-time winner of senior majors last summer, said this about Spieth. “I see the future of golf. This is a very special time for American golf.” Monty compared Spieth to Arnold Palmer and Seve Ballesteros for his common-man approach to the game.
To his eternal credit, Spieth has made a real effort to understand the game and its traditions, and he probably has a pretty good idea that he’s in unchartered territory. He has a classic connection with two-time Masters champion and Texas alum Ben Crenshaw. It was fitting that Crenshaw’s final appearance on the center stage of Augusta National was highlighted by Jordan’s first major championship. They say these kind of things happen in threes. For Crenshaw, it was his 1995 Masters win after burying mentor Harvey Pennick, Team USA’s comeback in the 1999 Ryder Cup, and now his protégé’s victory at the 2015 Masters.
Y.E. Yang, Graeme McDowell, Charl Schwartzel, Webb Simpson and Trevor Immelman will most probably never win another major. It is possible that Justin Rose, Bubba Watson and Martin Kaymer will once again prevail at a major. I also think it’s very safe to say that we will see Jordan Spieth atop more leader boards at grand slam events in the near future. He will not overpower a course like Rory McIlroy can, but he has the soundest short game as well as an uncanny ability to block out pressure. If you simply need just one example, it was Spieth’s up-and-down play on the 18th hole Saturday evening. Yes, a decidedly difficult pitch to 8 feet backed up with a par-saving putt is not like a soaring Rory McIlroy 4-iron to tap-in eagle range in the drama department. Yet it was just as important.
Jordan Spieth’s victory at the 79th annual Masters means that a number of other big names did not win. Most notably was Phil Mickelson, who finished tied for second with Justin Rose. It was Mickelson’s 10th runner-up finish in a major, putting him second all-time alongside Arnold Palmer. Both Phil and Arnie are way behind Jack Nicklaus, who had 19 second-place finishes in golf’s four majors. While Phil would dearly love to win this June’s U.S. Open at Chambers Bay to secure the career grand slam, he did reach a milestone at this year’s Masters with his second-place finish. Mickelson now has the career runner-up grand slam, having also come up one place short at the U.S. Open, the British Open and the PGA.
Speaking of Rory McIlroy, his Masters was all about too little, too late. After 27 holes on Friday afternoon, he was 3-over-par and in danger of missing the cut. Rory momentarily righted the ship and made the cut safely. For the next 45 holes he would come in at 15-under-par. He finished in solo fourth and will have to wait another year to acquire his career slam.
Finally, Tiger Woods ended up tied for 17th place. From my perspective, I was duly impressed. I fully expected him to shoot a pair of 76s and head for Florida for the weekend. From the chipping yips and stomach muscle issues to a top-10 Sunday pairing with Rory McIlory in the Masters was quite an accomplishment. I’m a little bit surprised that Woods isn’t going to return to the tour immediately to try to put more of this into practice, but then again he’s never played very many tourneys between the Masters and the Memorial.
The first major championship of 2015, the Masters, is now in the record books. It won’t be remembered for being a great tournament, but it very well may be recalled for the start of the career of Jordan Spieth. It was his first major win and many pundits predict it won’t be the last. Whether he has the firepower to match up to the likes of Rory and Bubba and Justin and Adam when they are at their power-hitting best is a matter of conjecture. Yet I think it’s pretty clear that Jordan Spieth manages his game and his emotions better than any of the top linksters in the game today. It’s safe to say he is the smartest top golfer in the world today.
