Golf

Jordan Spieth: Collapse at the Masters did not affect my year

World number three failed to contend again after back nine capitulation at Augusta

Jordan Spieth stands dejected after presenting 2016 Masters champion Danny Willett with the green jacket. Spieth let his lead slip after a quadruple bogey seven on the 12th hole at Augusta National. Photo: Kevin C Cox/Getty Images
Jordan Spieth stands dejected after presenting 2016 Masters champion Danny Willett with the green jacket. Spieth let his lead slip after a quadruple bogey seven on the 12th hole at Augusta National. Photo: Kevin C Cox/Getty Images
Ewan Murray at Baltusrol
Mon Aug 01 2016 - 16:57

Jordan Spieth has more cause than most to reflect upon the pace with which the 2016 majors have zipped by. Four months have passed since the 23-year-old threw away a seemingly unassailable Masters position but with the Open and US PGA Championships having fallen so close to each other in this Olympic year, the timespan feels so much shorter.

Spieth himself cannot be counted among those who believe his success rate – he has won once since April – would have been altogether different had he converted at Augusta National. “I don’t think so, no,” he said. “I’ve been working on my ball-striking quite a bit and it’s really paid off. I threw some lasers during US PGA week that I don’t normally throw. I hit a lot of fairways. I felt pretty comfortable over the ball. I was pretty comfortable that I knew what the ball was going to do.

“If my putting was up to the normal standard, the Open Championship and the PGA would have been a lot more fun. I’d have been potentially contending. Maybe not the Open, those guys [Stenson and Mickelson] kind of went nuts, but I don’t think that it [the Masters]changes anything at all.”

Perhaps, and understandably, Spieth cannot publicly admit to scar tissue from spring events in Georgia, where he took a quadruple bogey seven on the 12th hole in the final round. Perhaps he honestly believes there is none. The truth will only surely out when the Texan adds to his major haul. For now, and this has been Spieth’s consistent stance, he points towards technical rather than mindset issues.

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“What I worked on in my ball-striking was exactly involving the problem that came up on the 12th, which is getting my hands lower on the down-swing and moving the contact point to the centre of the face, or if I miss it’s off the toe and not the heel,” Spieth added. “That showed itself significantly at the PGA. I struck the ball in the middle of the face even when it went off line. I’m pretty excited about that work. When the putting gets back to that level, we’re going to have a lot of fun.”

Spieth has quickly readjusted goals with Hazeltine and September in his sights. “I was a couple of swings away from winning the Masters,” he said. “If I close that one out then it’s one of the best major seasons I’ll ever have. I’m not going to hang my head low.

“I made the cut in all of the majors, which obviously isn’t the goal for me. I contended in one and had a chance to win. I learned a lot from that experience, I just wanted to give myself that chance again. I wasn’t quite able to do so from there to here but it was not a bad showing in the four majors this year.

“My goal at the beginning of the year was to have a chance to win at least two of them and I didn’t quite get there but I can cap off the finish to this year strong if I play strong at the Ryder Cup. That’s going to feel like a major for me.

“The next few weeks I’ll have a lot of rest. This was a trying last two months so I’ll take it easy and work my way back in slowly. I’m really excited about the FedEx playoffs and the Ryder Cup, with emphasis on the Ryder Cup.”

(Guardian service)