Norton, MA—When you’re 22 years old and you win two major championships in a single season and contend in the other two and nearly win both of them, it’s hard to argue that even with two missed cuts in a row during the FedEx Cup Playoffs that Jordan Spieth has clearly excelled beyond all expectations—even his own.
After pushing Jason Day to the max during the final major of the year at the PGA Championship, Spieth received a bonus that helped sooth the wounds in not capturing the Wannamaker Trophy at Whistling Straits in Wisconsin. The Texan pushed Rory McIlroy from the top position and ascended the Mount Everest in golf—the new world number one player.
The small issue of being number one is that once you get to the top, staying there is even tougher. For two weeks, Spieth had a view that only a handful within golf have ever had—being the top dog. As the Fed-Ex Cup Playoffs commenced in New Jersey with The Barclays event, Spieth was asked question after question about his ascent to the top. No question the journey in ‘15 has shown the kind of quality golf only icons such as Jack Nicklaus and Tiger Woods have done from a relative same age.
For whatever reason Spieth proceeded to miss his first cut at Plainfield CC—it wasn’t even close. Rationales were offered—Jordan was using a new Titleist set of irons and he did not really like the way Plainfield set-up to his game. At no time did Spieth acknowledge these excuses. He said clearly that his play was just not what it needed to be.
What’s refreshing about Spieth is that he demonstrates a maturity far beyond his age. Spieth says things plainly. He’s aware that golf, like any other sport, is a numbers driven reality. You shoot low scores, you hang around for the weekend. You shoot high numbers, you hightail it to the next event and try to figure out what went wrong.
Spieth left Plainfield and lost his number one ranking in the process. Yesterday’s headline became paper scraps at the bottom of the bird cage. In heading to the second leg of the Playoffs, Jordan expressed confidence all would be well at TPC Boston. Despite his positive approach, once again Spieth failed to come close to making the final 36 holes.
The marvelous things about sports is how one can be exalted one week and crucified the next. To get an idea on the kind of year Spieth had prior to Plainfield, he had won four times and placed in the top ten no less than 12 times in 22 events, with four second place finishes. And, one cannot say enough times how very close he had come to snaring all four major championships in a given year.
