Spieth naps, DJ works out during British Open downtime
ST. ANDREWS, Scotland — Waiting out the Scottish gales at the British Open, Dustin Johnson worked out. Jordan Spieth napped.
This is not meant to condemn naps. Naps are great, and if a reigning two-time major winner wants to spend a portion of the 10-plus hours of a wind delay sacked out, hey, more power to him. As for Johnson, who also grabbed a few winks, the guy’s already the only golfer on Tour who looks like he could win a fair fight; note the way he went full sun’s-out, guns-out late in an afternoon when everyone else layered themselves against the wind. Working out’s not just what he does, it’s who he is.
The two alpha dogs of American golf rolled onto St. Andrews’ Old Course the way most Americans have rolled into St. Andrews’ bars: throwing back shoulders, making noise and elbowing through the European horde. With Rory McIlroy sidelined by a perfectly European soccer-related injury (an American would’ve blown off a toe with fireworks), the top of the leaderboard is wide open for Spieth and Johnson, and both have taken immediate advantage.
Spieth has had the more up-and-down opening half of the tournament, carding 11 birdies against six bogeys to finish the first 36 holes in 5-under. Spieth’s most impressive shot of the tournament might have been his downhill eagle putt on 18 from halfway across Scotland; he curled the putt up close for an easy birdie tap-in to close his disjointed second round.
Johnson, meanwhile, was 4-under after the tournament’s first five holes, and he’s only let off the throttle for one shot since then. Early Saturday morning, he continued his darkness-halted second round by attempting an ill-advised chip onto the 14th green. The ball went almost nowhere in the high winds, and then when Johnson moved too slowly to mark the ball, winds forced it right back off the green, almost into Spieth’s ball.
“My coin was about to hit the ground when [the ball] took off. Then I went to mark it again, and I think it took off again. And then Jordan was running to his ball. It was pretty funny,” Johnson said. “I was laughing at him. I wasn’t laughing at myself. But yeah, at that moment I was thinking, Why didn’t I putt it?“
The end result was a bogey on one of the two par 5s on the course, a missed opportunity that feels like it will come back to haunt Johnson. A single stroke made a world of difference at that U.S. Open last month, just as it did back in 2010 at the PGA Championship when a penalty dropped him out of a playoff.
“Fortunately [the dropped stroke] happened in kind of the end part of the second round, so we’ve still got a lot of golf to play,” Johnson said. “It is what it is. Can’t do anything to change it.”
Shortly afterward, about 30 minutes into play Saturday morning, the R&A pulled the plug on the round; Spieth was heard to gripe that the day shouldn’t have even started in such conditions. Afterward, both players went back to their rooms, Spieth opting to catch up on some sleep, Johnson deciding a light workout was the best way to kill time.
Once the round began for the third time, around 6 p.m. local time, Spieth did what he does best: hung on and kept small mistakes from becoming large ones. He parred the first three holes after the delay, then bogeyed the Road Hole 17th. He cleaned up his mess the very next hole with a birdie. Even though Johnson also birdied the hole, keeping the lead over Spieth at five strokes, the Texas kid found plenty to like about his round.
“I believe I’m still in contention. I still believe I can win this tournament,” Spieth said. “I need a really solid round tomorrow, though, because Dustin is not letting up. Dustin is going to shoot a good round [Sunday] with less wind, and I’m going to need to shoot a great round to really give myself a chance. To fall from two back to five back isn’t exactly what I wanted on a Friday [turned Saturday], but it could have been worse.”
The Spieth-Johnson pairing had sparked conversation from the moment of announcement earlier this week, as Spieth had defeated Johnson last month in the U.S. Open when Johnson three-putted on the 18th and final hole. Was the R&A having a bit of sport, as they say over here, at Johnson’s expense? An R&A official told Yahoo Sports that there was nothing specific behind the pairing, but either way, the duo, along with Hideki Matsuyama, has drawn some of the largest galleries of any non-retiring player this week.
“It was an interesting round that took a lot of time,” Spieth said, the second round having some 38 hours to complete, “but it’s nice to look back on Saturday evening and instead of being five shots back with one to go, I’ve still got two full rounds, so anything can happen here.”
If you like statistics, here are a few: Spieth and Johnson have led or co-led every single one of the 10 rounds in 2015’s majors. The winner of the last seven majors has held the 36-hole lead. This marks Johnson’s first time leading a major after 36 holes.
Oh, and this is the 16th anniversary of Jean van de Velde’s meltdown, where Paul Lawrie (who, incidentally, is just two strokes off the lead) came from 10 strokes behind to win. In other words, this is the British Open, and what’s happened the last three days is absolutely no indication of what could happen the final two.
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Jay Busbee is a writer for Yahoo Sports. Contact him at [email protected] or find him on Twitter.
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