Joy of Golf: A special year for Jordan Spieth but there’s been better

Joy Chakravarty 08:44 01/10/2015
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  • Jordan Spieth has won five titles this year and taken home $22 million as a result.

    By pocketing total earnings of $22 million, did Jordan Spieth really have one of the great seasons on the PGA Tour? Or, is this an overreaction from modern-day fans, who are prone to exaggerate achievements in order to justify them putting contemporary stars on the same pedestal as the legends of their sport?

    – Different Strokes: Intrigue of Solheim Cup, bald Spieth

    – EurAsia Cup: Clarke and Singh named captains
    – Spieth: Plotting two decades of domination

    While in dollar terms Spieth’s 2015 will go down as the best, the fact remains that he won just five tournaments in the year. There have been umpteen instances in the past where players have had far more success. Obviously, the benchmark in that category is Byron Nelson’s 18 wins in 1945 – and let me put my neck on the line by saying that is one record that will never be beaten.

    Some of the greatest years enjoyed by golfers include Tiger Woods’ 2000, when he won three majors and six others, Nelson’s 1945, Bobby Jones’ 1930 when he became the only player in the history to win a calendar grand slam (or the version that was considered grand slam back then), Ben Hogan’s 1946 (13 wins) and 1953 (five wins including three majors) and Annika Sorenstam’s 2002 (11 wins).

    My vote for the best season ever would be for either Woods’ 2000, or Hogan’s 1953.

    I am not including Nelson’s 1945 even though I consider it the most astonishing achievement in golf. Heck…I’d say winning 18 medal events in a year in your club is nigh impossible. And to win 11 of them in a row, I will chew each page of today’s edition if it is ever done again even on a development tour. But I devalued it a bit because competition wasn’t exactly that great. Hogan was serving the military that year, and many overseas players stayed home because of World War II. 

    And Jones’ 1930 grand slam was made possible because some of the best professionals of that time could not take part in the British and US Amateurs Championship for obvious reasons. Not that it would have mattered to Jones. After all, he did decimate the best pros of that time in the Open Championship and the US Open.

    Woods’ 2000 is well chronicled, but I am in equal awe of Hogan’s 1953. He entered just six events that season, winning five, three of which were majors. A grand slam would have been possible, but in those days, with the worldwide schedules not as well thought out as today, the Open Championship dates clashed with the PGA Championship. And he did all this despite still feeling the after-effects of his life-threatening car accident in 1949. Playing 18 holes was still a painful experience for the ‘Wee Iceman’.

    Spieth’s 2015 may not be as amazing as any of the above, but I’d still rank it among the best.

    Two reasons for that – each one of the above was achieved by established and experienced stars. Even Woods, who may have been just 25 years old in 2000, but he had been the world No1 for a couple of years by then. Spieth started the year ranked 10th in the world, aged 21, and he had just one PGA Tour win before that.

    Secondly, the quality of the opposition Spieth had to contend with. That included Rory McIlroy, who was gathering steam and looking menacing before the ankle injury, and Jason Day, who was almost in Hogan mode in winning four times in six starts towards the second half of the season. And still, Spieth managed to win two majors and three other Tour titles.

    Spieth, McIlroy and Day… these three have the potential to make 2016 the best ever season in the history of the sport. Fingers crossed. 

    Driving distance on Tour
    In the driving seat: Dustin Johnson.
    The game’s governing bodies continue to turn a blind eye towards the distances being generated off the tee, the driving stats from 2014- 15 season should give them some food for thought.

    As many as 25 Tour players averaged over 300 yards off the tee this season. It was led by Dustin Johnson at 317.7 yards with Bubba Watson a close second at 315.2. The 100th player in the driving distance list was Ryo Ishikawa, averaging 289.2 yards. Compare this to just five seasons ago, and only 12 players averaged more than 300 yards. But more shockingly, in year 2000, only one player cracked that distance – John Daly at 301.4 yards.

    As hundreds of golf courses become obsolete because off the advances made by the equipment, the only comforting stat was that Jordan Spieth came in a lowly 78th at 291.8 yards, but still managed to bank nearly $14 million more than Johnson!

    Stat of the Week

    57 – feet, the birdie putt made by Henrik Stenson on the last hole of the Tour Championship. It literally was a million-dollar putt as the Swede moved to tied second position with that birdie which helped him finish second in the FedEx Cup instead of third. The bonus cheque for finishing second is $3 million, exactly one million more than what a player gets for finishing third in the FedEx Cup.

    Quotes of the Week
    “I watched it first hand at the first two rounds at Augusta, and he played phenomenal and putted phenomenal. And it was the same today.” – Henrik Stenson on Jordan Spieth after the final round of the Tour Championship.

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