2015: A Spieth Odyssey
Just when you thought Jason Day was seizing control of the world of golf, Jordan Spieth has just given that golf world about ten million reasons to say, “Now y’all can just hold on there, pardners, this Aussie’s not gonna take that number one spot without a fight.”
And even though Jason Day was winning everything in sight this past month and a half, Jordan Spieth stepped up HIS game and won the last tournament of the season, punking the field of the 30 players that survived the Fed Ex Cup playoffs and winning the Tour Championship and the Fed Ex Cup in one amazing demonstration of some of the best putting the world of golf has seen in recent memory.
Oh, and for those writers and fellow players that were considering giving this season’s “Player of the Year” award to Day, Spieth emphatically showed the golf world that HE was the one who deserved the award and that THIS year of 2015 was his and his alone. Day and Spieth both won five tournaments this year but Spieth won two majors, a Tour Championship (semi major) and two regular tour events compared to Day’s one major, two Fed Ex Cup events (quarter majors?) and two regular tour events. The ten million reasons? That would be Spieth’s $10,000,000 bonus for clinching the 2015 Fed Ex Cup.
2015 was Jordan Spieth’s year like no one has had in the world of golf since the year 2000, when Tiger Woods won three majors, and at one time, was the current champion of all four majors (his famous Tiger Slam). Spieth won his two majors, and either came in second place or was one stroke behind the eventual winner in the two others. He had his two other tournament wins, AND he won the Tour championship and the accompanying Fed Ex Cup, with its bonus payout of ten million dollars. He won over $22 million this year in prize money (and the Fed Ex bonus), which was, by far, the most lucrative year in golfing history.
Spieth started the year out with a total of one victory on the PGA Tour and ended it (five 2015 wins later) with six wins and climbed all the way to the top spot in the world golf rankings. That is even though Jason Day powered through the second half of the PGA season like Sherman through Georgia, and at one point, took over the number one spot in the world rankings ahead of him. But Spieth got back his fabulous putting touch just in time at the last event of the year and won the whole enchilada and all of the spoils (Player of the Year, 10 million bucks, Number One in the World) that went with winning an event as important as the Tour Championship.
Make no mistake about it, Spieth won the Tour Championship because of his putting, While the rest of the golfers in the field would bogey some holes, battle just to make pars in others and struggle to shoot something close to even par scores for their rounds, Spieth would hit HUGE putts from distance for birdies, and, when he would get in trouble, he would inevitably make the clutch putts to save his pars. Spieth shot all four rounds in the 60’s while all but one (Danny Lee had a 72 in the second round) of the other golfers in Atlanta had at least two rounds in the 70’s.
In front of all of his peers, and all of the golf world, and in front of the other golfing superstars (Jason Day and Rory McIlroy) who now comprise today’s “Big Three,” Jordan Spieth showed EVERYBODY that he was still the MAN. He beat everybody in this tournament that he had to beat to win golf’s most lucrative prize.
If you don’t think there’s more of this in the future, think about this. Jordan Spieth is still “just a kid.” He only turned 22 this July. He had a year for the ages in 2015 and this just might be the start of something really big.
