Chansky’s Notebook: Spieth’s Good — And Human

This is today’s Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook as heard on 97.9 WCHL. You can listen to previous Sports Notebooks here.

Jordan Spieth’s bad shots showed how good he is.

He may have missed winning the third leg of golf’s grand slam by one stroke on the old course at St. Andrews, but based on how poorly Jordan Spieth putted in the last round shows just how dominant he will be moving forward.

Spieth had six three-putt greens and one disastrous four-putt after leaving the ball 100 feet short of the pin on the windy 8th hole. He blew the putt off the back of the green, came back within five feet and missed again for a double-bogey five. He had six other greens in which he took three putts to get the ball in the hole.

Yet, after missing another short putt on 17, he stepped to the 72nd hole in the British Open with a chance to tie and win in a playoff. How could this kid, who left Texas after his freshman season, been anywhere near the leaders after putting so uncharacteristically poorly? It shows how good he is and, with just a normal day of putting, would have won leg No. 3 by at least three shots.

Spieth had only played St. Andrews once as a kid and never since he turned pro. He stayed home last week to win the John Deere Classic by a gazillion shots while practicing for St. Andrews on a hundred-thousand dollar simulator that showed him every angle of every hole as he practiced on the massive video game. The one thing it could not simulate, however, was the wind that cost the tournament an entire day and made some of the holes seem like 600 yards long.

But, as he did in winning the U.S. Open at Chambers Bay, every time Spieth made a bogey, he followed it with at least one birdie, sometimes two straight. Except on the very last hole, where he yanked his tee shot way left and then was short on his 100-yard pitch shot to leave him with an improbable putt to tie and make the playoff a foursome instead of a three ball.  Zach Johnson, who doesn’t hit it very far compared to most pros, hung in there and still brought the Claret Jug back to the U.S. with a gutsy four-hole score of one under.

But, clearly, Spieth gave Johnson and two or three others a chance to win because he did not close the door when he had a chance. This kid is so talented, so confident in his game and so smooth, that it is not a stretch to say he is the next Tiger Woods without all the drama and with a longer career than Tiger will have. Don’t be surprised if Spieth crushes the field at the PGA at Whistling Straights, Wisconsin.

And then does win the grand slam one of these years. He’s that good, but also proved he’s human.