PEBBLE BEACH, Calif. _ If you were hoping to see spectacular golf from Jordan Spieth on Sunday, you didn't get it. Spieth did all of the remarkable stuff on Friday and Saturday while making 16 birdies, a bunch of gutty par saves and just two bogeys while shooting back-to-back 65s.
But if you were looking to see how to manage a final golf round with a six-shot lead, Spieth put on a clinic of consistency and calm. The wrap-up of the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am was the equivalent of an 18-play, length-of-the-field drive in football _ conservative, methodical, unrelenting precision. Very little risk-taking and a lot of high-percentage plays. Spieth's game wasn't anywhere near "the zone," but it wasn't out of control, either.
In some ways, though, that can be viewed as somewhat spectacular in that Spieth never allowed himself to be seriously threatened and wound up winning his first AT&T title by four strokes over hard-charging Kelly Kraft. Nobody else got within five.
Spieth only made two birdies while shooting a 2-under par 70, his worst round of the tournament. His first was a tap-in gimme at the easy par-5 second hole. Then came 15 straight pars until he finally delivered an exclamation point for his audience _ a 29-footer at the par-3 17th that put a lock on things.
But this was the biggest number for Spieth _ no bogeys. It was big because at the start of the day, any would-be challenger was going to have to shoot 65 if he simply played par golf. He did a little better than that, rendering the runs at him by Kraft, Dustin Johnson and Brandt Snedeker futile exercises.
Kraft shot a 4-under 67 but the closest he got to the 23-year-old Texan was three shots. Snedeker made three early birdies to get within four at one point but fell back with a bogey at No. 9 and couldn't make a birdie on the back side. He wound up fourth after a shooting the same score as Spieth _ 70. Johnson's move came way too late _ he shot even par-36 on the front, and his four-birdie spurt on the back nine only got him within five, good enough for third place.
The victory was Spieth's ninth PGA Tour title and his first since last May, but if his play this week was any indication, he'll be moving into double figures in no time. He looked like the 2015 Spieth who won five events, including the Masters and U.S. Open, and soared to the world's No. 1 ranking. He's slipped to No. 6 over the past year _ and he'll remain in that position despite this latest win _ but things are so tight at the top he could possibly get back to No. 1 with another victory next week at Riviera Country Club in the Genesis Open.
Spieth only had to scramble on a few holes, but there was nothing too ridiculous. He had a couple of near-miss disaster shots, but escaped the truly bad break, such as when he came just a few feet from putting his second shot off an ocean cliff at the par-5 sixth hole.
