A tale of two of the worst drives in major championship history:
1) In the final round of the 2011 Masters Tournament, Rory McIlroy led by one shot when he pulled his drive on the 10th hole to a strange spot between two guest cabins, 60 yards left of the fairway. Flustered, he pitched out sideways, pulled his third shot well left of the green, hit a tree with his pitch, and eventually made triple bogey. McIlroy then bogeyed the 11th and double-bogeyed the 12th en route to a back-nine 43 and finished ten shots behind Charl Schwartzel.
2) In the final round of the 2017 Open Championship, Jordan Spieth was tied for the lead when he pushed his drive on the 13th hole onto a massive dune, 60 yards right of the fairway. Unflustered, he carefully assessed his options, declared his ball unplayable, retreated to the driving range to take a penalty drop, and then – 20 minutes later – blasted a 260-yard iron shot adjacent to the green. He recovered to save bogey, then played the next four holes in birdie-eagle-birdie-birdie and won by three shots over Matt Kuchar.
Spieth’s late-Sunday composure at Royal Birkdale was the main attraction of another largely lackluster summer of major championship golf. The comparison with McIlroy isn’t entirely fair; Spieth had won two majors before his own Augusta collapse last year, of course, whereas McIlroy was still looking to win his first major in April 2011. But the contrast between Spieth’s and McIlroy’s responses to these misfortunes of their own making is indicative of the paths their careers have taken.
Spieth has played atrocious golf at times in 2017. He has already posted four 75s, a 76 and a 77 this year. Belying his reputation as an otherworldly putter, he’s only 47th on the PGA Tour in Putting Strokes Gained. And hitting only 58.5% of fairways off the tee, 130th best on Tour, simply isn’t good enough for someone of his modest length. And yet, Spieth won in February at Pebble Beach, in June at the Travelers (by holing a sudden-death playoff bunker shot) and in July at Birkdale. Through diligent application, he has fully recovered from last year’s Masters and the patchy form which caused him to miss three cuts this spring to somehow lead this year’s Tour in Scoring Average. His bro-tastic relationship with caddie Michael Greller, though often irksome to outsiders, seems to anchor him in reality and give him confidence. And off the course, Spieth is unfailingly polite and measured but thoughtful in interviews, providing good copy without calling undue attention to himself. He has made the most of his God-given ability.
McIlroy bounced back from his Masters disaster by throttling the US Open field at Congressional in 2011, but his career since then has been wildly uneven. When he hits peak form he is nearly unstoppable: in late 2012 he won three PGA Tour events in five weeks; in 2014 he won the Open, the PGA Championship and a WGC event within four weeks; and in both 2015 and 2016 he won twice in the same month. But apart from those four bursts of greatness, McIlroy hasn’t won in America since March 2012. Over the past five years, McIlroy has 52 Top 25 finishes on Tour; Spieth has 79. This year he has no wins, one new equipment contract (signed mid-season), one sacked caddie – days after publicly praising JP McManus for helping him rally from his poor Open start – and one celebrity-packed wedding, to say nothing of quotes like saying nobody should ever miss the wide US Open fairways at Erin Hills before spending hours in the long rough himself and missing the cut. None of this is conducive to a stable golfing life…and McIlroy has abundant form in this regard.
Strange but true: fortysomethings Phil Mickelson and Zach Johnson are the only golfers apart from Spieth and McIlroy in the Top 50 of the current world rankings to have won multiple majors. By default, Spieth and McIlroy therefore stand out as the two golfers most capable of chasing, if not Nicklaus and Woods, at least Hagen, Hogan and Player. Despite McIlroy’s superior talent, from what I’ve seen so far, I favor Spieth’s chances more.
* All statistics as of 13 August.