If you want to get technical about it, and Jordan Spieth will, his swing isn’t there yet.
Not in the A+ sense anyway. But he’s closing in, and if there’s anything Spieth has learned in the dog days of a victory drought, it’s that it doesn’t take his best to contend at a major. Not even close.
“I had a chance to win two majors last year feeling like I had a “C” game,” said Spieth. “I mean, that’s realistic. I was in the final group Sunday of last year’s Open at Carnoustie, and I woke up saying ‘How in the world am I in the final group at Carnoustie?’ And that’s not just me not believing myself, that’s just legitimately, mechanically, how I felt through my swings. It just wasn’t good compared to when I was on.”
Spieth, 25, comes into the 119th U.S. Open breathing in the rare air of Pebble Beach with a sense of gratitude. He’s won here before, but that doesn’t detract from the sense of awe he still feels about the place. A victory walk up the 18th at Pebble feels like Augusta, he said.
Iconic.
“It was more beautiful in person than I could have imagined,” he said of his first time on property. “And then to be inside the ropes playing a tournament – not only not having to pay to play, but getting paid to play. Pebble Beach is really special, always has been.”