Different Strokes: Spieth tops $22m for the year, Warne's golf skills

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  • Grabbing golf headlines this week: Shane Warne and Jordan Spieth.

    The thing with great sporting achievements is that we seem to instinctively resort to previous, similar feats in order to try and make sense of it, to put it into some sort of context.

    That makes a certain sense on paper – but realistically what value is added when you put Arsenal’s famous ‘Invincibles’ team of the 2003/04 Premier League season up against the only other time a side has gone unbeaten for campaign in English football: Preston North End’s famous 1888-89 effort?

    The achievements happened in such different environments as to be essentially unrelated – the only common ground being the ‘0’ in the loss column itself. So when Jordan Spieth capped off his remarkable 2015 season with victory in the FedEx Cup playoffs, and everyone rushed to compare him to greats of the past (‘the most dominant year since Tiger in his prime!’ ‘He’s earned more in a year than Jack Nicklaus did in his career!’) perhaps the best way to contextualise the 22-year-old’s achievements was by looking not at the past, but at two other players right there with him in the field at East Lake.

    Rory McIlroy won two majors in 2014, yet an effort previously considered superhuman by many has now been made to look pathetically mortal by Spite’s subsequent achievements (McIlroy has still never won the FedEx Cup). Then there is Jason Day, who has won five times in 2015 (including his first major) yet is now set to pick up no more than a handful of votes for player of the year.

    Most years that sort of list of results would walk the end of season awards, so perhaps the fact Day will get little formal adulation for what he has done is the most fitting way to measure the scale of Spieth’s displays.

    Five wins, including two majors, is a haul even Woods in his prime would have been proud of – and Woods never came up against players as similarly locked-in as Day and McIlroy (and Fowler, and Bubba Watson) have been at times over the year.

    That Spieth responded to Day’s recent surge with a virtuoso performance with $11.4 million on the line last weekend only seemed to emphasise that this was his year, even when so many others had so much to be proud of.

    Spieth has now earned more than $22m on the course in 2015 – a staggering effort for one individual, even if the man himself gives those around him (his caddie, his coach, his family) as much of the credit for his results.

    “I have an opportunity now, with a year like this and a bonus like that, to celebrate and to share it with the people that have made it possible,” the 22-year-old said. “And that’s kind of the plan.

    “Our team did an unbelievable job this year. Everything was exactly how we needed it to be to peak at the right times. If we can continue to do that, then we’ll have more seasons like this. But right now, we’re going to enjoy it, and I’m able to help out those who made this possible. Because it was not a single effort.”

    The end of the FedEx Cup playoffs signals the start of golf’s winter (events never stop, but it is now a while until there is one to really get the blood pumping), but it is the period where another of Spite’s teams – his business team – can really get to work.

    Top golfers earn plenty of money on the course but even more off it, and now is Spieth’s chance to turn his on-course success of the last 12 months into an off-course endorsement plan that will ensure he makes money hand-over-fist for many years to come.

    He is already clothed head-to-toe in Under Armour, who have also given him an equity share in the business (as they have done with other leading athletes like Stephen Curry). A logo has been patented, meaning Spieth-specific clothing can only be a few months away.

    If it all sounds reminiscent of Tiger Woods, then that is because it is. Woods went through a similar ‘corporate restructuring’ after his breakthrough 1997 season, a move that ensured he made far more away from the golf course than he ever did on it. If Spieth’s team are similarly savvy, he now will to – perhaps launching Under Armour as a viable golf brand in the same way Woods did with nike (who barely had a presence in the sport before him).

    Spieth has just produced one of the all-time great years in golf. It will be interesting to see how he capitalises on that, and how different his look and ‘brand’ is by the time 2016 rolls around.

    “We won on some awesome tracks this year, some beautiful places,” he added. “You have to conquer the golf course first and foremost. You have to conquer yourself, your own emotions, you have to win the mental battle with yourself.

    “It gives me a lot of confidence going forward for the next 20 years.”

    2. … but of course Jason had his day too…

    While it will ultimately go down as Spieth’s year, no-one will soon forget the streak of golf Jason Day produced from the Open Championship onwards. Victory after victory after victory, that first major championship and, for a brief moment, the world no. 1 spot too.

    To coincide with that rise, Day’s sponsors RBC have produced a short documentary on the Australian’s rise to that lofty position in the rankings. Usually we wouldn’t go in for what is essentially a paid-for advertorial – but Day’s story is so unlikely, and so endearing, as to make it work.

    If you like golf, and want to understand Day, this is worth 10 minutes of your time.

    3. Needed more spin, Warney

    And, on a less cinematic note, here’s Shane Warne trying to stick one close to the pin at the famous 17th hole at St Andrews … from a balcony of the nearby hotel.

    The famous Australian cricketer did not quite have the control on the ball to keep it on the dancefloor, but it was a pretty good effort nonetheless.

    Warne and co. are in Fife this week for the Alfred Dunhill Links Championship, an event where plenty of amateurs you would recognise (and a few you wouldn’t, but whose bank balances would make your jaw drop) play alongside the pros at Carnoustie, Kingsbarns and St Andrews.

    All of which is to say, don’t be surprised to see a few more shots like Warne’s this week. The first (presumably awful) shot, that is … in competition they would never let you play from someone’s deluxe suite!

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