Spieth's 2015 is comparable to best years in golf history

It’s easy to see Jordan Spieth cruising halfway toward a Grand Slam at age 21 and conclude he must have skipped a step.

Everybody could certainly see that the young Texan had the ingredients to be a transcendent golfer.

“He can be great,” said Tiger Woods. “A rare talent,” offered Phil Mickelson. “A superstar,” said Paul Azinger. “A special young kid,” said Jack Nicklaus.

These were first-impression reviews, the kind of high praise from significant corners of the game that a truly generational talent might live up to – in time.

But Spieth was only 21 and already pushing envelopes that the greatest golfers of all time took years to approach on rare occasions.

Spieth’s season challenged the golf world to re-examine what might be possible after stirring triumphs at the Masters and U.S. Open followed by deep runs at the British Open and PGA Championship.

“First, first, fourth, second – just astonishing in this day and age,” said David Feherty, a former Ryder Cup player turned golf analyst. “One shot away from the playoff in the British and as close as he came at the PGA, one of the great seasons in professional golf history. No sign of slowing down, either. He expected that of himself each week that he teed it up. That’s what great players do. They expect to play well every week and they’re shocked when they don’t.”

Ben Crenshaw, a fellow Texan who retired from majors at Augusta National Golf Club as Spieth took command of it, said the young man’s performance filled him with awe and pride.

“To watch him last year starting at Augusta – the explosion really happened at Augusta – and then to watch him execute one of the great years ever in the history of the game,” Crenshaw said. “My suspenders are way out.”

Spieth likes to think his extraordinary 2015 season is the “new normal” for him.

“It just came together (at the Masters and U.S. Open) and the other majors we had a chance,” he said. “If I could somehow duplicate that year for the rest of my career, I would be pretty pleased.”

THE 2014 PGA TOUR season was the year he learned how to win.

Spieth held weekend leads at Kapalua, Torrey Pines and Pebble Beach, but was unable to win.

But those flinches were a backdrop to his biggest letdowns. Sharing 54-hole leads at the Masters and Players Championship, he had to watch his playing partners outperform him and hoist trophies.

“I had four or five leads going into the weekend in 2014 in the PGA Tour season, and each time you don’t come through you wonder what’s wrong. Is it me? Is it my game?” Spieth said. “And then you hear the noise of, ‘He’s a good player but he can’t close,’ and this and that. Whether you try to hear it or not, it still comes in. And that’s a tough thing to get over.”

None of them was as tough to get over as the Masters. Making his Augusta National debut at age 20, Spieth was two up on Bubba Watson with 11 holes to play.

Then a couple of average chips and missed putts on 8 and 9 – coupled with birdies by Watson on the same holes – flipping everything with a four-shot swing. Spieth’s inability to put any heat on Watson on the back nine let the 2012 champion cruise to a rather sweat-free second Masters win.

A respectable runner-up finish in his Masters debut might have been enough for friends and family to feel good about, but Spieth was in no mood to celebrate.

“He was crushed that first year,” said his mother, Chris. “We were kind of celebrating because he came in second at the Masters. He was like, ‘That’s first loser; I didn’t win.’ He got over it, but you could tell that it was just burning him. He couldn’t wait to get back. He wanted to start the next day.”

For a long time after, Spieth had a hard time putting his frustration into words.

“I was leading the golf tournament over somebody who I was playing better than at that time I was leading,” Spieth said. “And to not be the one with the jacket when that was my dream to win that tournament … it doesn’t matter if it’s your first time or what it is, if you’re playing better than the person you’re playing against and you’re leading on a Sunday and only have (11) holes left, you can win. And that’s what bothered me.”

It gnawed at him for 12 months.

“Any time we would be at his house and the (Masters) commercials would come on and instead of him doing it, it was Bubba – it would just burn a fire in his soul,” said Eric Leyendecker, one of Spieth’s closest high school friends.

Spieth admits that the loss was “eating away inside of me.”

“I could relive each and every moment and shot from that eighth hole on,” he said. “I could relive all of them but the ones that eat at me were the ones where I just got a little bit ahead of myself maybe. Not really in my thoughts, but I just didn’t have the patience. On 8 and 9, I made two bogeys and I really didn’t feel like I missed a shot, I just misjudged. … The hardest part for me was I just wasn’t able to bounce back with my putter on the back side. That’s what really ate at me.”

Spieth found his answers on the other side of the world.

After a winless PGA Tour season, Spieth made his first overseas swing to Asia and Australia. He ended up in a three-way tie for the 54-hole lead in the Australian Open.

This time, however, Spieth made eight birdies in a flawless final-round 63 that was four strokes better than the second-lowest score that day. He won by six shots, exhibiting the patience he saw Watson use to beat him at Augusta.

“Sunday final round when you’re tied for the lead is the marathon still,” he said. “I always thought of it as a sprint.”

Spieth reinforced his confidence a week later with a wire-to-wire runaway victory in the Hero World Challenge at Isleworth, beating a small but elite field by 10 strokes with a 26-under par total.

“It just clicked right at the end of that season to lead into ’15,” Spieth said. “Those Sunday evenings were tough for me when I didn’t close them out. Makes you really appreciate now that you can, you know. You wonder how in the world was I not able to back then, but it’s just the way the game is.”

By the time Spieth returned to Augusta he was on a run of nine top-seven finishes in 11 starts, including a playoff win in Tampa and back-to-back runner-up finishes in San Antonio and Houston leading into the Masters.

HIS 2014 MASTERS disappointment morphed into positive reinforcement on his return.

“If I used any of that it would have been just enough to be fuel,” he said. “I did not dwell on it. I remember coming in saying, ‘OK, what I take from last year is that I love this place, I can compete here and may have a little bit of kind of vengeance to get back. But what my mind was really focused on is that I just came off of two weeks of runner-up finishes. … I came into Augusta feeling rested, healthy and like my game was there and I knew I could play that course well. That’s what I was focused on.”

That focus never wavered in a hail of scoring records. It started with an opening 64, threatening the all-time best score in a major when he was already 8-under par through 14 holes before making a bogey on the par-5 15th to settle for a three-shot lead.

“That first round was just so much fun,” he said. “Things were going so well and I didn’t really care where anybody else was at and didn’t care where anybody else was in the world. I just cared about exactly that moment and being in that moment, enjoying it and trying to stretch out what we could out of that round and make it kind of historic. I wasn’t thinking about making it historic at the time, I was just thinking, ‘How low can we take it on this golf course?’…”

He wasn’t done chasing history, playing every nine-hole stretch under par. He set the record for best 36-hole score (14-under), 54-hole score (16-under) and tied Tiger Woods’ 1997 total (18-under). He shattered Phil Mickelson’s 2010 record of 25 birdies with 28. He’s the first player in Masters history to ever reach 19-under par, giving that stroke back with a bogey on the final hole.

He never let anyone closer than three strokes after the opening round.

“The only doubt in my mind didn’t come from the previous (year) or that I wasn’t able to close that tournament,” Spieth said. “The doubt in my mind was … how do I just get out of my own way and just let it all take place? That was the only negative that could have inhibited my performance in April. That’s just in my own head. And sometimes that’s challenging. We started out going right from the get-go.”

To keep focus, there was radio silence around Spieth regarding the golf.

“At night, I know it’s there,” he said of the pressure that comes with leading. “All the TVs are off. All the social media is off. I’m just with my friends playing pool and having food catered. It was our routine we did the year before and every one just stays away from it. Maybe we talked about certain shots that day here and there, but the overall big picture there was no mention of it.”

If there was a defining moment, it came late Saturday.

“There were some late-round challenges and obstacles and when you overcome those they can be turning points …,” said Cameron McCormick, his swing coach. “Even a little earlier in the round there were certain situations he got himself in it stuck out in my mind that he and (caddie) Michael (Greller) were thinking really well together here. There were times before, even in amateur golf, where he wouldn’t have exercised so much patience or presence of mind to make the decisions he made and execute the way he did as well. Many things that Saturday afternoon stood out.”

The biggest standout moment came after making a mess of the 17th hole for double bogey. Spieth was wobbling when his approach on 18 sliced right into the gallery, leaving him a precarious downhill pitch over a bunker to a tight pin. Electing to flop it, he calmly dropped it to 8 feet and saved par.

“That to me won the Masters for him,” said Cathy Marino, his high school coach and former LPGA player. “That would have taken on a whole different light if he had bogeyed that hole. The way he got it up and down almost got rid of the double in his mind because it was so amazing.”

Spieth downplays its significance slightly.

“It was big because it put a smile on my face that evening,” he said. “I don’t think the outcome changes at all. I certainly hope it wouldn’t. … It’s so big to have a smile on your face at that time just does wonders for the next day.”

The next day started well, with Spieth matching Justin Rose’s long birdie putt on the first hole to set the tone that he wasn’t backing down.

With the green jacket, Spieth fulfilled his primary golf dream. But his dream season was only beginning.

SPIETH SHOWED UP for the U.S. Open answering the same obligatory Grand Slam questions asked of the reigning Masters champion. The only difference is Spieth’s unique familiarity with a Chambers Bay course too new for most of the other players. Spieth played in the 2010 U.S. Amateur at the links-style course on Puget Sound. Even though he didn’t play well, he knew what to expect.

But more important, Spieth’s caddie was a native of the area who cut his teeth as a looper on the elite public course.

“Went into the U.S. Open kind of the same way I went into Augusta in a place me and Michael knew better than anybody else,” Spieth said of the mounting expectation. “Why should we let it bother us? There should be no reason, when you’re playing well, to let outside talk or chatter that has nothing to do with the way you perform on the golf course. It may be easier said than done, but if I think about it that way I think that’s best.”

And once again he took shares of the 36- and 54-hole leads. Despite nearly coughing it up with a double bogey on the 71st hole, he collected himself to birdie the last to win when Dustin Johnson failed to match with a closing three-putt.

“I felt a lot of pressure today, as much as I felt at Augusta in April,” he said in June. “I knew that this would be the second leg and that it would be two majors in a row and I think that that added to a little bit of the pressure.”

Before Spieth, only four golfers had won the Masters and U.S. Open in the same season – Ben Hogan (1951 and 1953), Arnold Palmer (1960), Jack Nicklaus (1972) and Tiger Woods (2002).

IN A FINAL ROUND crowded with proved talent that kept popping up near the top of the British Open leaderboard, Spieth hovered in the mix. Despite putting it off the green for what seemed like a slam-crushing double on the par-3 eighth hole in the final round, he kept fighting back.

“He didn’t cave,” his father said.

Then on the 16th hole, his curling 30-foot putt kept tracking until it disappeared into the hole, prompting an eruption from the gallery and Spieth.

“Such a boring round of golf on that back nine and then 16,” Spieth said. “Right now I can picture that putt. I can see the crowd in the background across 17 tee box. I have that picture in my head and with about 5 feet to go I thought that thing’s in the hole. Holy (cow)! I walked away from that tournament a little upset because after 16 I’m going, ‘Here we go. This might be destiny.’”

Facing the already brutal 17th Road Hole, the rain and wind, which had subsided, suddenly picked back up stronger. His 3-iron approach from 240 yards came up short, and his long pitch left him 8 feet to save par. His putt slid below the cup, drawing a collective groan.

“On 17, I did about all I could,” he said. “I missed the putt on the same side of the hole everybody missed all day. Everyone under-read it.”

It was the 18th hole that hurt most. Needing birdie to join a playoff, Spieth tugged his drive left. Then after backing off his wedge once because of camera noise, he left his pitch short in the Valley of Sin. His last-hope putt cast a shadow over the lip as it rolled inches by. His quest was done.

“I left St. Andrews with a similar feeling as when I left the 2014 Masters,” Spieth said. “It was such a great week and it’s been said, ‘Wow, what a great run.’ In my head, I still had control of that golf tournament again just like I had control of the 2014 Masters. When that putt on 16 went in, it was on me. I had two holes left to go 1 under and I win the tournament. One of them’s an extremely short par-4 with a huge green and a huge fairway. So you should have a birdie chance. And the other hole is probably the hardest hole you’ll play all year. That’s what was tough.

“I was upset at 18. I was upset at a poorly executed tee shot and a poorly executed decision on the second and not having a chance there to have a putt. I felt that if I had a putt there I would have redeemed 17.”

HIS BRITISH SETBACK didn’t diminish Spieth’s readjusted desire to join Hogan and Woods as the only professionals to win three majors in a season.

But despite a 17-under score that would have won all but a few PGA Championships, he finished second to Jason Day, who broke the all-time major championship scoring record with 20-under par at Whistling Straits.

“It was Jason’s day,” Spieth said.

Added up, Spieth shot 54-under par in the four majors, breaking Woods’ record of 53-under in his remarkable 2000 season. He played in the last two groups at every major.

“It was amazing,” Spieth said in the immediate aftermath of the PGA. “You only get four a year, to have an opportunity to win all of them is so cool. I hope to have a season like this one at the biggest stages again. I hope that we can do this again. It’s not easy, it takes a lot out of you. I’m tired right now. I mean, I left it all out there.”

His performance leaves a lasting impression. Hall of Famers keep reaching for superlatives to explain Spieth’s game.

“It’s hard to describe,” Crenshaw said. “He just seems to have a sixth sense of playing the game. He breaks down courses in his preparation and he executes to his game plan. He plays golf courses in a way that’s practical to him. He realizes his strengths which is in so many things. I don’t see really any part of his game where he’s lacking. That short game has a diamond brilliance all of its own. Those crucial putts that dropped all through the year.”

Said Nicklaus in a recent radio interview: “He doesn’t look like anything real special. He just looks very simple, very sound. He takes it back and through on one plane. He’s got good balance. He obviously thinks very well. He manages himself around the golf course way better than almost any kid his age.”

Spieth understands the odds of matching his 2015 performance, but he’s not ruling anything out. After finishing 2015 with five wins – adding the Tour Championship and FedEx Cup title to his list of accomplishments – he picked right up with a victory in his first start of 2016 at Kapalua.

This is his new normal, and he intends to get better through reaching incremental goals such as improving from within 100 yards.

“That’s where I can really set my goals where I want to improve by this much here,” he said. “Whatever the categories are, if I’m a better player than I was this year then the wins will come with that. I believe that.”