Weekend Wrap

I wasn't sure what to make of the proceedings, when Steph Curry asked a breathless nation:

Well, if you say so....Mike Bamberger, a more traditional source as relates to our little game, had this lede to his game story:

SOUTHPORT, England — Cool your Delta jets, people. Young Jordan Spieth is not the next Tiger Woods. Spieth, 23, man-child of golf's promised land, showed that repeatedly in winning the game's oldest championship and the third leg of the career grand slam. He is Jordan Spieth, on Sunday a dune-running, putt-holing, thrill-a-minute sui generis golfing savant.

And that is more than enough.

To which Daniel Berger, his victim in Hartford a few weeks back, as heard to say, "If it were only putts, man!"   Not really, but Berger did have this to say:

We can certainly agree that he has a certain flair for the dramatic....

Back to Mike:

He began Sunday with a three-shot lead over his playing partner, Matt Kuchar, with his

perma-smile and loping gait and easy-going demeanor. Spieth said going in to the finale that Kuchar was an ideal playing partner, the kind of sentiment you never heard Tiger express in his life. More to the point, we all know what Woods would have done with a three-shot 54-hole lead: stolen all the available air from the event and ended the proceedings before making the turn on Sunday. Spieth is not built for that. He went out in 37, to Kuchar's even-par 34, and the game was on.

I find it difficult to assess Spieth in comparison to the greats of the modern game, because his game can look alarmingly shaky at times, and seems dependent upon heroics that can't be repeated.  Except when they are....

I like this bit as much as Mike does:

Sunday night, with the easy candor that makes him such a thorough pleasure to listen to in both victory and defeat, Spieth reviewed his final-round mindset at Royal Birkdale and said, "I was questioning why I couldn't just perform the shots that I was before. And sometimes you just can't really figure it out or put your finger on it. ‘Am I pulling it? Pushing it? Am I doing both? What's going on with the stroke?' It's just searching. And during the round today I definitely thought while any kind of fear or advantage that you can have in this moment over other individuals, not just Matt Kuchar today, but other people that are watching, that's being taken away by the way that I'm playing right now. And that was really tough to swallow. And that kind of stuff goes into your head. I mean, we walked for two minutes, three minutes in between shots. And you can't just go blank. You wish you could, but thoughts creep in." 

Thoughts creep in! It's not just us. Them too!

People who don't play our game have no clue about this aspect of our game....   But one of my concerns about Jordan for the long haul is that a human being can only absorb so much drama....

Shack luckily found himself at Ground Zero, a/k/a the 13th hole yesterday, and filed this dispatch:

SOUTHPORT, England – Greatest bogey ever? 

Consider what went into Jordan Spieth’s incredible 13th-hole 5 Sunday in the final round 

of the 146th British Open from a lucky eyewitness. 

Spieth’s tee shot was horrendous. He put his head in his hands. The press had been held back on the highest dune just behind the 499-yard, par-4’s tee. Reporters could immediately see it was a slicing balloon that started down the right rough. Atop the dune, a spectator appeared to fall from being struck. Spieth had no idea, because when he reached the landing area, he was shocked to have the friendly gallery insist the ball had flown over the dune.

Hmmmm...what would the contenders be for that?   NBC had the footage of Seve from the car park at Lytham ready, but he did way better than bogey.  But that's the best example I can think of, though the sheer size of the equipment vans and dunes added to the surreal proceedings....

And let's also note how lucky we've been with the sportsmanship on display recently in our game....  whether it was Henrik-Phil last year, Sergio-Rose at Augusta, or this exchange:

"Matt had to sit there and say, ‘You've got to be kidding me,'" Spieth said. "I apologized profusely to Matt about the amount of time it took from when he hit his shot to when I played my second. Because that's tough. It's tough to play golf that way and step up and hit a six-iron when it's starting to rain and the wind is blowing and you haven't taken a full swing in probably 10 or 15 minutes." He was speaking of Kuchar's experience there. His empathy level is remarkable.

Versus this from the "victim":

Kuchar was the model of grace and understanding. "I knew that taking a drop far back on the range, trying to get the correct line that you take an unplayable drop, and then from there trying to figure out the distance, trying to figure out where to aim his shot. We knew we were going to be there for a while. We made ourselves comfy and told some stories. Certainly it was not anything I was ever going to be upset with. It's a very difficult situation." 

This is why we love the game!

Has Kooch ever gotten upset at anything?  A little love for the runner-up seems appropriate:

“It’s crushing. It hurts. And it’s an excitement and a thrill to have played well, put up a

battle, put up a fight,” Kuchar said. “You work so hard to get to this position, and to have a chance to make history and win a championship. You don’t get that many opportunities. And to be this close, to taste it with five holes to go, it’s a hard one to sit back and take.” 

As rain started to fall with a consistent drizzle, John Wood, Kuchar’s caddie, walked off the 18th green and headed to the locker room, where he was reduced to tears. Kuchar got emotional, as well. Waiting off the 18th green were his family – wife, Sybi, and their sons, Cameron and Carson. Kuchar thought they were in Colorado. 

“A teary surprise,” Kuchar said. “And it’s great to have people to share things with, have loved ones here. … I think everybody around me is doing the best to put the most positive spin on this this week as possible.”

That was a nice scene and I'n glad they were there for him, and Sybi's hug for Jordan was also a nice moment.  It's hard to know what this might do for Kooch, who's competitive fires have perhaps not burned as brightly as others....  Or is that just a perception  we take away from his Aw Shucks manner....  A near miss might be a kick in the butt for him.

Sean Zak handles the history of it all:

1. Having already claimed the 2015 Masters and 2015 U.S. Open, Spieth won the third leg of the career grand slam. Only 18 other players have won three of golf’s grand slam of majors in their career. Of those 18, only Rory McIlroy, Phil Mickelson and Tiger Woods are considered active players. 

2. Still a few days shy of his 24th birthday, Spieth joined Jack Nicklaus as the only players to win three legs of the grand slam before turning 24. Tiger Woods did not win his third major until he was 24 years and six months old.

I think Spieth reminds me of no one as much as Phil....  I know, he doesn't have Phil's firepower for sure, but it's hard to think of another guy whose weaknesses and dark thoughts were as evident....  and also the short-game wizardry.  I also found this win to be reminiscent of Phil's '04 Masters....  the hiccups on the front nine followed by incoming pyrotechnics.....

Marika "I'd Like to Buy a Vowel" Washchyshyn has a fun take on Jordan's goodies:

1. A really cool title: For 12 months, the winner is not-so-humbly referred to as the Champion Golfer of the Year. No disrespect to the winner of the Masters or the U.S. Open, but the name change that comes with winning the Open is enough to make you feel like royalty. 

2. A gold medal: Originally given out in 1872, before the claret jug was ready, each subsequent winner of the Open received a gold medal. The leading amateur gets a silver medal.

It was quite a day for our great game.  The level of play wasn't up to last year's final round game, but to my eye that just made all the more human and compelling.

But this was a strange moment, no?

Jordan Spieth's rollercoaster final round at the British Open was packed with memorable moments, including a wild, half-hour adventure on the 13th hole. But another moment

also stood out: After draining a putt for eagle on the 15th hole, Spieth pointed to the ball and shouted "Go get that!" to his caddie Michael Greller.

Was it a rude gesture or an in-the-moment celebration? In his press conference after the win, Spieth said that his adrenaline-fueled outburst was pure theatrics. 

"It was kind of like an old-school movie," he said, "when the caddies used to get it out of the hole when guys holed a chip. When you're here, the TVs are always playing old Open Championships, and especially at that venue. I don't know, I saw it, and for whatever reason, I didn't really know what I was doing at that point. I looked over at Michael and he was in shock, too, and I just said, 'Pick that ball up out of the hole.' And he didn't really know what I was saying at first."

Not his best moment of the day....

Shall we cover some odds and ends from the week?  There was that tasty little 62 thrown up by Branden Grace,  about which John Huggan posits this interesting theory:

SOUTHPORT, England — Everything was already in place on Saturday for low scoring. 

And then the R&A made Royal Birkdale even easier. With a weather forecast predicting winds no more than 12 mph at any point during the day and greens soft after heavy rain one day earlier, the organizers of the 146th Open Championship knocked 129 yards off the yardage on the scorecard during their set-up. For the third round, in all but perfect conditions, the proud Southport links was presented to the world’s best players at 7,027 yards instead of 7,156. Are we really surprised then at the scores? 

At first glance, all of the above can only be described as strange. Or odd. Weird even. Why would the championship organizers do such a thing? What could they be thinking? Isn’t major-championship golf supposed to be an unrelenting grind, a difficult and demanding test for even the most proficient practitioners of the game Scotland gave to the world?

Where ya going with this madness, John?

In order to achieve all of the above, they have deliberately allowed the game’s best almost free rein. They have collectively gritted their teeth and actively encouraged low scoring the like of which we haven’t seen before at Royal Birkdale. And, in doing so, they hope to encourage growing and widespread calls for change in the long-established debate over distance. 

No easy task, of course. But it can safely be assumed that the R&A and their American counterparts at the USGA would welcome such discussions.

John admits his case is speculative, though I'd characterize it as wishful thinking.... I agree that they picked a strange day to let the guys reach No. 5, but 129 yards is nothing in the cosmic scheme of things.  The course actually played shorter in Saturday's soft conditions, because it allowed longer clubs off the tee.  There really wasn't much that could be done to toughen up the course....

Johnny Miller predictably drew incoming when he noted how easy the course was set up.  Kind of a silly argument, in that both sides are right as far as they go.  Obviously the first 62 was going to be shot in easy conditions... Duh!  When else were you expecting it to happen?  I think the bigger issue is that Grace has no clue as to where he stood....

Why now?  Jaime Diaz has the best take:

And maybe the most important factor, considering how many times the golf gods have kept the 62nd stroke out of the hole in a major – it was about damn time.

That door has been knocked-upon quite frequently, so perhaps Huggan is onto something above.

Did you catch Justin Thomas in the deep hay on Friday?   If not, do watch that first swing on the video at the link....  It's kind of a sawed-off finish, perhaps caused by the club no longer being in his hands?

And how about this "Only in Britain" moment from the same John Huggan?

It's not just we humans that love those iconic yellow scoreboards....

This was likely the best untelevised golf of the week:

SOUTHPORT, England -- Ian Poulter was extremely pleased following a Friday 70 at the 146th British Open that he felt was better than his opening 67 in mild conditions.

However, he seemed most proud of the tournament's undercard match that happened the night before when his son, Luke, played John Daly Jr. in an eight-hole contest at nearby Southport & Ainsdale Golf Club. File this under sporting events we'd rather pay to see than the Mayweather-McGregor fight. 

Not only did Luke take down Daly's son -- he took some money off him as well.

"Well, one was very upset when he'd come back in the house, and unfortunately that was little John," Poulter explained. "But Luke was kind of rubbing it in, as he took a 20 pound note from him. So poor little John was not best pleased." 

Shortly after, Poulter was asked a follow-up about where Luke learned to rub it in.

"I'm not sure," Poulter said with a grin. "It must be his mother." Right. . .

 S&A is a fun little track that actually hosted two Ryder Cups in the 1930's....

Did you enjoy Austin Connelly's game?  There was something delightfully laconic about it to my eye, kind of the anti-Jordan.  But their great buds apparently:

He doesn't look much older now, does he?

And props to Alex Myers for catching this guy's moment of fame:

SOUTHPORT, England -- In the aftermath of Jordan Spieth winning the 146th British Open, there was a lot going on for the new champ. There were countless congratulations to receive, many interviews to give, and more photos to pose for than most newlyweds take at a wedding. 

All the while, the most loyal fans stuck around hoping for a special personal moment with the winner. And one man came so close to getting a high-five from Jordan Spieth -- until he had a lowlight caught on video.

Video at the link but, spoiler alert, it doesn't end well:

At least he stuck the landing....

Just a great week of linksy goodness, with more to come.  Beginning Thursday, the old guys will be at Royal Porthcawl, the famed Welsh links that your humble blogger will visit in a few weeks.  Mandatory viewing for sure...