Jordan Spieth heads to the Masters in fine touch but had cause to rue a bittersweet finale to the Shell Houston Open, during which the 21-year-old missed out on the opportunity to create a small piece of history.
Had Spieth won, he would have become the second youngest player in history – falling short of Tiger Woods by 10 weeks – to reach No2 in the world. Instead he was knocked out on the first hole of a play-off which included JB Holmes and Johnson Wagner. It was Holmes who prevailed on the second playing of the Houston Golf Club’s 18th.
Spieth led by a stroke at the start of day four but found himself trailing Holmes, who shot 64, by two when on the 14th. After hauling back that deficit, Spieth immediately cited the distraction of a camera or mobile phone when playing from a greenside bunker in the play-off. To his credit, he played down that incident afterwards.
“I am not sure what happened. I heard something or maybe it was just me,” Spieth said. “It’s not an excuse. I had a good lie but just got down into the sand a lot quicker than I would normally do there and caught the ball fat.
“It has been a great Easter Sunday and I was happy with the way I played down the stretch. I am taking a lot of momentum to Augusta. I have felt very comfortable in these last three out of four weeks that I have played. I have been a lot more comfortable when taking on more and more pressure so that gives me a lot of confidence.” Indeed, Spieth had rattled in an 11½ft putt just to make the play-off at 16 under par.
Paul Casey, himself a former Houston victor in sudden-death format, finished four strokes adrift of the leading three after a closing round of 71. That proved the Englishman’s highest 18-hole score of the tournament. Perhaps ominously for a player who would ordinarily attract Masters attention, Rickie Fowler finished stone last in Texas by three strokes at three over par. Fowler had weekend rounds of 77 and 76 after opening with back-to-back 69s.
There was no sign of Woods or Rory McIlroy at Augusta National on Sunday. McIlroy. The world No1 and Masters favourite, is likely to practice on Monday morning.
