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No Worries…Jordan Spieth Is In Good Company

While Jason Day spent the weekend winning The PLAYERS and padding his lead over Jordan Spieth in the Official World Golf Rankings much of the golf world was wondering “What’s happened to Jordan?”spieth masters hands

Stuff happens…in life and in golf. Spieth’s play at The PLAYERS was indeed surprisingly poor but let’s not push the panic button just yet.

Jaime Diaz of Golf World is pretty sure Spieth will be all right and he chronicles how all the big names in golf had their own rough spells.

Every player is different, and tournament golf is unpredictable. But a good rule of thumb is that the better the player, the less he will be affected by a devastating loss, and the more likely he will bounce back.

It’s also instructive to note that it’s nearly impossible to go through a Hall of Fame career without very painfully giving at least one major away. In 1946, Ben Hogan three-putted the 72nd hole at consecutive majors—the Masters and the U.S. Open—to finish a stroke out of first in both. At 34, Hogan was still without a major, but not for long. He won the next one he played in at the PGA and went on to win eight of the next 15 after that

Sam Snead had a devastating loss in the 1939 U.S. Open at Spring Mill when he made an 8 on the final hole when a par 5 would have won the championship. He admitted the loss cost him confidence and, at 27, drastically slowed his career momentum. But Snead rebounded to win four majors in the 1940s and three more in the 1950s.

Arnold Palmer’s most celebrated loss in a major was the 1966 U.S. Open, but he suffered several nearly as bitter before that and always came back strong. After losing the 1959 Masters with a disaster on the 12th hole similar to Spieth’s, Palmer had his finest year in 1960, winning the Masters and the U.S. Open. After giving away the 1961 Masters with a double bogey on the last hole, he won his first British Open three months later. After losing the 1962 U.S. Open in a playoff to Jack Nicklaus before legions of home fans at Oakmont, he won the next major at Troon. (Nicklaus himself did much the same thing in 1963, winning the PGA after blowing a late lead at the British Open.)

Most recently, Rory McIlroy at 23 gave away the 2011 Masters with a final-round 80. At the U.S. Open at Congressional two months later, he won by eight shots.

I once asked Gary Player, who won the first of his nine majors at the 1959 British Open despite a double bogey on the 72nd hole, whether his career would have been seriously hampered if that final-hole collapse had cost him victory. After a pause in which he relived the desperation he had felt in the two hours before the other contenders finished, Player finally said softly, “No. I was too determined.”

Everyone that has some success has had some failure. And in golf you lose far more than you win even if your name is Nicklaus or Woods.spieth green jacket

I can hear Spieth echoing Player’s remarks, he’s also too determined. He’s determined to be the best golfer he can be and there is little he won’t do to get himself back on track.

And it’s easy to forget that he is still only 22 years old. Because he says all the right things and acts like he’s been on tour for decades we can lose track of the fact that he’s still a kid.

Spieth’s 2015 campaign has been hailed as one of the top four or five seasons in the entire history of golf. And for many that could be a difficult burden. How do you follow a season that had him a few putts from the Grand Slam?

That might play out to be the burden Spieth has to bear in year’s to come but not just yet.

He young and talented and far too determined to let a blown major or a missed cut derail him from being his best.

Right now Jason Day is the best golfer in the world and he spoke of his PLAYERS Championship propelling him closer to the Hall of Fame.

Well Jordan Spieth earned his Hall of Fame ticket in his ’15 Grand Slam Chase of a season.

Spieth already earned his stripes for winning majors and for losing them. Like Diaz says all the greats have done the exact same thing.

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