Jordan Spieth, 20, looks ahead
to the Quicken Loans National —
and a bright future
By Barry Svrluga
The Washington Post
It’s just a tiny movement of his head, a peek up, not even discernible to the people who line the ropes of every hole Jordan Spieth plays these days. It is a golf trick as metaphor. When Spieth prepares for a short putt — the kind we all miss but pros have to make — he doesn’t look at the ball. He looks at the hole. He looks ahead.
“He paid too much attention on his path, on his backstroke,” said Tiger Woods, who enjoyed his breakthrough win at the 1997 Masters, when Spieth was 3. “That was a way to eliminate it. It’s not that he has the yips. It’s just that his eyes will look at the path.”
Spieth’s path this week puts him at Congressional Country Club, where he will be both Woods’s guest and competition at the Quicken Loans National. For most 20-year-olds, this would be an opportunity to test skills against the best the PGA Tour has to offer. Except at 20, Spieth is already among the best the PGA Tour has to offer.
“Watching him,” five-time major winner Phil Mickelson said, “is a lot of fun.”
What’s behind Spieth, on his backswing: contention in a tour event at 16; the decision to leave the University of Texas midway through his sophomore year and turn pro; the validation of that decision by winning a PGA Tour event last summer, before he turned 20; putting himself in position to be a captain’s choice for the victorious Presidents Cup team; and a share of the lead at his first Masters, headed into the final round, before tying for second.
. . .
Spieth is from Texas, and carries with him the requisite kick-open-the-bar-door swagger.
“I’m not a range rat,” he said. “I’m not a technique junky. I’m not a person who read about somebody else who swung the club and decided I wanted to swing exactly like that.”
Rather, he played — and plays — by instinct. Growing up in Dallas, he thrived not on instruction but on competition. It is part of his game that survives today, even as his repertoire has become more refined. Spieth’s instinct, when a tournament title is in the offing, is to shape shots into greens more than is necessary — almost because he can.
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