The last time Jordan Spieth won the Emirates Australian Open, it laid the platform for one of the most incredible runs of form seen in the modern era.
His second win – on the first sudden death play-off hole against Queensland’s Cameron Smith and Victorian Ashley Hall – may prove just as important in the golfing evolution of the young Texan.
Back in 2014, the golfing world witnessed one of the great final rounds – a nine under 63 at The Australian – from Spieth to collect his first Stonehaven Cup. The following week he blew the field away “with the best ball-striking week of my golfing life” at the Hero World Challenge in Florida.
By the time he drew the curtain on his season at the Tour Championship in September 2015, he had won four more titles – including the Masters and US Open – and came as close to claiming the Grand Slam as any player has since Ben Hogan in 1953.
But 2016 turned out to be an indifferent year for the Texan. He won the season-opening Tournament of Champions and seemed destined to successfully defend his Masters title as his lead stretched to five strokes with just nine holes to play. His quadruple bogey seven ‘meltdown’ at the par-3 12th and subsequent tie for second behind Danny Willett, soon became the focus of considerable attention from the American media.
By July, the usually gracious and accommodating Spieth seemingly had just about had enough of the inquisition of his game, particularly his ability under pressure. While no one doubted his ability to make pressure putts, some questioned his swing under the pump.
Over the final stretch of holes and the play-off at Royal Sydney today he buried a lot of that doubt – some of it self-inflicted – by making “clutch” swings he knows will earn him more major championship victories. In the final hour of this year’s Australian Open Spieth went a long way to trusting his swing under pressure again.
“You can’t practice for being very nervous,” said Spieth in reference to his Masters loss. “You can’t get on the range and go okay, get nervous.
Jordan Spieth (right) rides in the winning putt on the first play-off hole. PHOTO: Mark Metcalfe/Getty Images.
“It doesn’t work that way. It just comes through experience and it just seemed that my tendencies were always to get underneath the ball and miss it right.
“And so I just committed to my swings the last couple of holes, today in that play off and that is tough to do when left is trouble, because you think you’re going to hit it left. It’s uncomfortable, but they went right on line.
“Now I know that and I think that’s going to do wonders going forward.
“It’s easier when you’re five or six up coming into the last few holes, you can trust anything, there’s no nerves, you’ve already closed it out. But it’s moments like today where you can really take it going forward.
“The way we played the play off, I think it’s going to do wonders for me." – Jordan Spieth
“I’ve been in a little bit of a stall hitting the shots when they mattered. Colonial I saved myself with a lot of putts in our last worldwide win. To hit those two shots in there right where I wanted to hit them and then to make the putt with it, is really big going forward and it’s something I can draw on all next year … I can look back on the way this one was finished out.”
Midway through the final round you could have received long odds on Spieth winning his second Australian Open title.
Just as 54-hole co-leader Geoff Ogilvy was putting a two-stroke buffer between him and the field on the back of a chip-in eagle at 7th followed by a tap-in birdie at 8th, Spieth was heading in he opposite direction.
Back-to-back bogies, at the 11th and 12th holes, had the 23-year-old drifting outside the top-10. But the bounce back was world class.
“I hit two really solid shots on 12 and made a nice putt … Played 13 the way it’s supposed to be played and then dug deep,” Spieth said of his fourth and fifth birdies of the day.
“I had a good look on 15 and I thought when I missed that one, that may have cost me, but I made a bomb on 16 and two par saves and 12 (under) ended up being the number.”
While Spieth will take plenty of satisfaction out of his ball-striking under pressure, it was his clutch putts in the final stages that yielded the trophy. Over the final four holes he played, Spieth made 62 feet of putts – 35 feet at 16 for birdie, seven feet for par at 17, six feet for par at 18 and then 14 feet for birdie on 18 in the play-off. It was riveting stuff and something for which we have become accustomed when the two-major winner is in the mix.
But, according to the man himself, he was “brainless” on the Royal Sydney greens for most of the four days.
“The first couple of rounds I was putting, I had a lot of chances and I didn’t make anything outside 10 feet,” he said.
“I started to get more comfortable, stopped worrying about my stroke and just try and hit the lines. Michael (Greller, his caddie) helped me a lot on the practice green on where I was lined up, was I hitting my line and then really on reading these greens.
“The greens were getting in my head the first two rounds and to have commitment from both of us and then in my practice, say okay, I know what that stroke did, hit the ball where I was looking, let’s just do that. Whether it’s a perfect stroke or not, it doesn’t matter. It was, really, really helpful.”
For Hall and Smith, the consolation prize of finishing second to Spieth is a cheque for $105,937 and a start in The Open Championship at Royal Birkdale in July. Aaron Baddeley, the co-leader through 54 holes, picked up the final qualifying spot for The Open after being the highest ranked player among those who finished tied fourth.
Related Articles
Then there were three: Aussie PGA hopefuls cut in half
He's got the game: Cam Smith doubters have been warned
