(1) Shot one over par for the day – the same score he shot Saturday, one stroke better than his Friday score.
(2) Finished second in the Masters, perhaps the toughest course in the world, under tougher than normal conditions. He outplayed all but one player in the field.
(3) Hit many more good shots than bad. In fact he only made two terrible shots out of 73.
(4) Seven birdies. Six Pars. Four Bogies. Take away those two bad shots and Spieth wins the tournament.
(5) Played the first 5 holes even par. Played the middle 8 holes one over. Played the last 5 even.
(6) Made 22 birdies in 4 days, more than anyone else. Willett made 13.
(7) Spieth’s alleged “meltdown” should not have come as a surprise: he played the back nine in 2 over both Friday and Saturday.
(8) Did this while mired in a season-long slump.
Have these people ever played golf before? If Jordan Spieth collapsed Sunday, he also collapsed at least six times in tournaments earlier this year. Almost all players lose well over 90% of the tournaments they enter. Get over it, people. Perhaps their standard is a tad high. Spieth’s record against the field at Augusta: 276-2-2. He’s played the Masters three times and only two guys have beat him.
It may have been a testament to Jordan Spieth’s greatness that he led for the first three rounds of the Masters, plus the first eleven holes of the final round. He was dealing with adversity not only on the back nine Sunday, but also the entire year. Spieth had a busy off-season, traveling overseas to six countries. After winning in Hawaii in early January he finished no higher than 17th. He missed a cut and though he made it to the round of 16 in the Austin match play event, he admittedly had control problems with his woods and irons. He was pulling wrong clubs and being too aggressive, and called himself “brain dead.” People have placed impossible expectations on Spieth, and naively call him out when he falls short. Yet through it all no golfer is more hospitable or giving.
Could you imagine the patrons on the course watching the scoreboards when Spieth went from -5 to -1? Spieth did a great job handling himself under the conditions. CBS did well to analyze but not criticize. Others less in the know were not as forgiving, holding every miscue under the proverbial microscope. The NFL and MLB has a cooling off period before the media can come in. Spieth had a camera in his face the moment he stepped off the course. No one said anything about Willett’s nationally televised celebration at the sight of Spieth’s bogey on 17 (actually it was Willett’s caddy and friends coming in to give him hugs that spurred the celebrations, not Willett himself).
Like everyone else (including me), Jim Denison used Spieth's struggles to get clicks. I’m sure a lot of what he wrote about Spieth was gleaned from other articles Jim had read. Everyone handles adversity differently. Reactions can differ from Christian to Christian as well. Just because Bubba Watson is a Christian it doesn’t mean he automatically handles adversity well. People are getting onto him about comments he made this weekend, taking Watson to task while not questioning the validity of the patron who provoked him – a guy who was standing in a place we wasn’t supposed to be. Why wasn’t this fan removed from the course? Why believe him? But that’s the world we live in today.
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