Golf
Ian O'Connor, ESPN Senior Writer 9y

Sit back and appreciate Spieth's magical majors run

Golf

HAVEN, Wis. -- As he works his way around a golf course the way a 37-year-old pitcher works the corners of the plate, Jordan Spieth will occasionally remind you of his age. He just turned 22, so when his agent and a PGA Championship official gave him a choice Saturday evening between a cart ride to his news conference or a mad dash through the exiting fans, Spieth looked at the chart, peaked around a barrier, and for once acted his age.

"Nobody's there," he shrieked. "Let's jog."

And just like that, Spieth took off like a kid who had just pulled off a successful playground prank. The official and the agent chased after Spieth, who wasn't jogging in his spikes as much as he was bouncing in a zig-zagging way through the fans who stopped dead in their tracks, pointed in his direction, and called out his name.

"Look," said one fan, "it's freakin' Jordan Spieth!"

It's the best freakin' golfer in the world (sorry Rory).

Spieth had just finished birdie-birdie-birdie for a third-round 65 and a 13-under total that left him 2 strokes behind Jason Day, who, at 27, will arrive on the first tee Sunday with all kinds of major championship scar tissue. He's never won a big one, and frankly it's hard to picture Day surviving this last-group pairing with the boy wonder fixing to win his third major this year.

For the record, Spieth did outplay Day in their Monday pairing at St. Andrews (69 to 70), even if both were left gutted and 1 shot shy of the playoff on the 72nd green. Spieth had bogeyed the Road Hole, and he'd landed his approach at the 18th a few feet short of his target before watching his ball suck back off the green and into that famed fairway dungeon where dreams go to die.

So Mr. Spieth, when did you start having that conversation with yourself that a lost Grand Slam bid could be salvaged with a victory at Whistling Straits and a still-pretty-damn-historic season?

"It started about halfway through my putt from the Valley of Sin on 18 of St. Andrews," he said, "when I realized that it was going to miss just left."

And this is why every average golf fan out there, every Joe Six-putt, needs to stop before Spieth smacks his first tee shot Sunday and promise to remember his season as magical even if he pulls a Dustin Johnson and hands the trophy to someone else.

Sure, any Masters and U.S. Open champion who lost The Open in a devastating way would say the right things about the PGA Championship to come. But under those circumstances, saying you're going to treat the PGA as if the Grand Slam bid were still alive, and acting the part, are two entirely different things. In 1960, after losing his own heartbreaker at St. Andrews, Arnold Palmer shot 74 and 75 in the middle rounds and finished with a back-door T-7 at the PGA. In 1972, after Lee Trevino stole The Open from him at Muirfield, Jack Nicklaus shot 75 in the second round and placed T-13 at the year's final major.

Jordan Spieth isn't going to place T-13 on Sunday. In fact, if he places anywhere but first it will be the biggest upset at the PGA since Y.E. Yang took out Tiger Woods in 2009. Or something like that.

"I realize we don't get to play another event like this until April of next year," Spieth said. "And that makes you think, 'Wow, there really only are a few of these, and they are precious, and you need to make the most of them.' When I think of this being the last major of the year, it's a little bit of a sad feeling because I really thoroughly enjoy playing in majors."

How much does he enjoy playing in these things? Look at it like this: If Spieth goes three for four in 2015, he will accomplish something at 22 that the great Nicklaus never accomplished over the 25 seasons that marked his major championship career (1962-86). Spieth will join Woods and Ben Hogan as the only men to win three majors in one year in the Masters era. And when it comes to the game's four defining tournaments, Spieth has no designs on being a one-hit wonder. He admitted Saturday that his ultimate legacy will be shaped by the sum of his major victories, and nothing else.

"When you look back on your career years and years from now," Spieth said, "you may not remember exactly what happened within a year, but you'll remember how many you've won and how many got away from you."

He wouldn't let this one get away from him, even if people would've understood. Spieth appeared a bit fried at Firestone last week, even if he threw an irrelevant 66 on the board in the final round. Nobody would've criticized him if he gave it the ol' college try at Whistling Straits, waved his cap to the appreciative fans and then taken his T-17 to the airport for a contented ride home.

But on Friday, he turned a potential bogey or double-bogey into a ridiculous hole-out birdie from the bunker on the vile 18th, left the world's second-best player (the rankings be damned), Rory McIlroy, in his dust, and then recovered from a front nine Saturday that saw Spieth pressing too hard to make his big move.

He chastised himself for being impatient and for following his opening birdie with nine consecutive pars. On the 11th tee, with a bunch of players in double figures, Spieth told himself, "It's now or never at this point."

Now almost always beats never in Spieth's world. Suddenly his putter came to life, and the cup started looking bigger than Lake Michigan. He ripped off three birdies in a row, took a breather for two holes, then punctuated the round with another three-peat.

On the 18th green, while measuring his short putt, Spieth accidentally glanced at a leaderboard that showed Day at 16 under through 14 holes. "You've got to be kidding me," Spieth told himself. "When is he going to slow down?" Day slowed down at the 15th when he needed 2 shots out of the sand and walked away with a double. Only at the time, Spieth figured Day would push his score to 17 under. Spieth ordered himself to make that final putt, and make it he did.

He left Whistling Straits for the night on a streak of 33 holes without a bogey, a wonderful thing to sleep on. But before he took off, Spieth did his playful jog into his news conference and opened an interesting window on his competitive soul.

He didn't talk of the St. Andrews loss as a Grand Slam loss, but as a giveaway to match the Masters he lost to Bubba Watson last year. Neither defeat was what the educating golfing public would call a giveaway -- ask Greg Norman a thing or two about that -- and yet Spieth was holding himself to a higher standard.

"And so really I'm kind of 2-2 in those scenarios," he said, "where I felt like I had a chance to control the outcome of a major and didn't in a couple, did in a couple."

If Spieth hasn't dominated Day when paired with him (his record is 5-4-3), his two major titles and his desire to make good on the St. Andrews failure should help him write his name into the same history book paragraph with Woods and Hogan.

But before the first ball is sent whistling into the Whistling Straits' sky Sunday, promise yourself to appreciate Spieth's staggering talent and resolve regardless of the outcome. This is one kid who doesn't need another trophy to go home a winner.

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