Defending Masters champ Jordan Spieth picks up where he left off in 2015 – Washington Post
By Dave Sheinin,
AUGUSTA, Ga. — Sixty-five shots into hisopening round at the 2016 Masters, the nerves finally relented, the last windy bit of danger faded from sight, and Jordan Spieth suddenly got chatty. As he walked up the 18th fairway of Augusta National Golf Club in the mid-afternoon sunshine, his ball nestled safely on the green, the gallery greeted the defending champion with warm applause — albeit a Thursday ovation, to be sure, not a Sunday one — and it was as if he could finally exhale and speak from the heart.
“I don’t know what it is about this place,” Spieth gushed to one of his playing partners, amateur Bryson DeChambeau. “I just love putting here. I can see the break. I can see the lines.”
And then Spieth stood over his ball one last time, saw the break, saw the line, and drained a six-foot birdie putt to complete a round of 6 -under-par 66 — a score that seemed remarkable at the time, on one of the windiest Masters days in recent memory, and was only confirmed as such as a blustery afternoon wore on.
“That was a flawless round of golf,” said Paul Casey, who rounded out Spieth’s threesome and shot a 3-under 69. “When he got in trouble . . . what could have been an error, he turned into a wonderful par save. It was absolutely flawless, [on] one of the toughest days I’ve ever seen around Augusta National.”
While calamity struck other golfers with alarming regularity all across the hills and dales of Augusta National – rounds derailed by wind and/or water, plus one epic, gruesome case of the yips — Spieth, as was the case here a year ago, seemed to be playing a different course, or a different brand of golf.
And so the 2016 Masters began the same way the 2015 edition ended, with Spieth, the 22-year-old Texan, clear of the field, and the golf cognoscenti scrambling to define exactly what sort of monster has been unleashed on their sport. Spieth’s bogey-free 66 left him two shots ahead of New Zealand’s Danny Lee and Ireland’s Shane Lowry — with a group of five golfers, including Casey and 2013 U.S. Open winner Justin Rose, three back — and extended a run of dominance here that, at least by some measures, has no precedent. He became the first golfer in history to lead the Masters outright in five consecutive rounds.
“I love that the course requires imagination and a lot of feel,” Spieth said. “It makes me [get] away from the technical parts of the game that take over when I’m at the range. . . . I enjoy this tournament more than anywhere else.”
In nine career rounds in the Masters — including a runner-up finish in 2014 and a wire-to-wire win a year ago — Spieth has an aggregate score of 29 under par, a mark no one else in history has even approached. Even Tiger Woods, the last player to storm this storied course in such fashion, shot only 21 under across his first nine Masters rounds as a professional. Phil Mickelson was 12 under. Rory McIlroy, 7 under. Jack Nicklaus, even par. Arnold Palmer, 19 over.
Small sample size or no, Spieth’s career Masters scoring average of 68.8 is nearly three full shots better than McIlroy’s (71.85) and two shots better than Woods’s (70.86).
“He just exudes that sort of, whatever that is. There’s something different, something cool,” Casey said of Spieth. “It’s a knowing. It’s a confidence. It’s the way he walks. It’s the way he stands. It goes all the way through from the way he speaks and the way he shakes your hand and the way he deals with people. It’s wonderful.”
With sunny skies but winds that gusted up to 30 mph, many golfers experienced the frustration of a day’s worth of windswept perseverance being wiped out with one poor swing or one bad break. Australian Jason Day, the world’s No. 1-ranked golfer, climbed within one shot of Spieth’s lead after a sizzling 31 on the front side, but a triple-bogey six at the par-3 16th sunk his round. Likewise, Rickie Fowler, ranked fifth worldwide, endured two double bogeys and a triple on his way to an 80.
And then there was poor Ernie Els, who made a quintuple-bogey 9 on the tournament’s first hole, requiring six ugly, awkward putts to get down from three feet, as the galleries and his playing partners — including Day — watched in horror.
More common was the sort of up-and-down day experienced by McIlroy, the 26-year-old from Northern Ireland who was widely considered the best young player in the world before Spieth’s emergence. McIlroy — one of eight European players in the top 12 after the first round — produced a 2-under-par 70 that included an eagle and four birdies, but also four bogeys, including one on the day’s last hole, the par-4 18th.
“He’s very, very comfortable here,” McIlroy said of Spieth. “You look at the way he played in 2014 and 2015 and look at what he’s done this year, it’s a golf course he’s comfortable on, and he’s going to be tough to beat this week. I feel I’m going to have to play good golf, but I feel there’s enough good golf in me to that I can reel him in over the next 54 holes.”
The forecast for the next three days calls for much of the same – sunshine, cool temperatures and wind. The greens may dry out. The course may play harder and faster. Spieth might even stumble.
But it seems more likely that anyone who wants to wrest the green jacket from him is going to have to chase him down and take it.
