At the 9th, Jordan Spieth finally snapped, and all the anger he had swallowed in the past two days spilled out of him in one great swell. It was a bad putt that did it. His approach had landed right by the pin but span back down the slope and finished 12ft from the hole. He missed it once, then missed it again, the second time from only two feet away. When that happened, he shouted, then smacked his thigh so hard that the sound echoed right around the green. He almost missed the tap-in too, because he was so annoyed that he carried his backswing right up to his waist. When he stooped to pick up his ball, he shaped to throw it away in disgust but checked himself at the last moment.
A bogey, then, his first of the day. But it was not just the dropped shot that got to him. It was the three birdie putts he had already missed on the front nine, on the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th, all from inside 15ft. It was the five three-putts he had taken in the second round. It was the late finish on Friday night and the early start on Saturday morning, and the fact he had only four hours of sleep in between. It was the way the R&A made him go out for half an hour in heavy wind on Saturday morning, though he was rightly convinced that conditions were not fit for play.
There is an idea that Spieth is ice cool on the course, always calm, always in control. It is not quite right. Cast your mind back to 2014, when he made his debut at the Masters. Going into the final day, he was tied for first with Bubba Watson. He even had a two-shot lead after the first three holes but then he faltered coming around the turn. As his game started to unravel, his mood went with it. He started to shout at himself, to flounce, to throw his arms and drop his clubs. It was a similar story at the Match Play Championship earlier that year. That time, he apologised for his histrionics during his defeat to Ernie Els.
Interesting thing is what Spieth did next. He admitted he was embarrassed by his own behaviour. So he taught himself to hide his frustration. Now he pulls his hat down low to hide his scowls and mutters, and he squeezes the grip of his club, instead of slamming it into the ground. Which is why, back at St Andrews, the gallery at the 9th found his outburst so surprising. But Spieth’s secret is not that he does not feel anger, it’s that he uses the emotion so well. Take his victory in the US Open at Chambers Bay. On the Sunday afternoon, he made a double-bogey on the 17th, then stormed off, furious, to the 18th, hit his second shot on to the green and made a birdie.
When Spieth starts shouting and slapping his thigh, you should always keep your eyes fixed on him to see what happens next. More than likely it will be worth watching. And angry as he was at Chambers Bay, he was even angrier here. “Walking off the 9th green I was as frustrated as I’ve ever been in a tournament,” he said. The only thing he could think of that compared with it was playing 14 in the wind on Saturday morning. “Those two moments were as frustrated as I’ve ever been. I don’t normally ever display frustration. I did both times. I just couldn’t hold it in. I think I punched my golf bag.” That, he said, seemed like a better thing to do than punching his caddie, Michael Greller.
It was the spark Spieth needed. At 10, he hit his approach to nine feet. At 11, he struck an astonishing tee shot to eight feet. And at 12 he played an exquisite chip on to the slope at the front of the green, to a similar sort of distance. Three holes, three putts, three birdies. And all of a sudden, he was ten under, tied for the lead, and his shot at the grand slam was on again.
Spieth had been struggling to make putts from this range right through the first 45 holes. Most of them had been missing left. He had been doing a lot of practice on his putting stroke, and he and Greller were spending so long lining them up that they were asked to hurry up their play by the officials. They have an especially elaborate routine in which they both circle right the way around the hole, then stare across it towards each other. Now Spieth was nailing them, almost unthinkingly. On 13 and 14 he made two more, to save par. “Those were big, big putts for me.”
After that Spieth broke into a big smile, which stayed on his face right through to the finish. His partner, Sergio García, was also playing some wonderful golf and was nine strokes under par himself. So they made a happy pair, chatting away as they came through the last four holes in even par. Spieth almost ruined it with a poor chip at 18 but rescued himself with a wonderful long putt out of the valley of sin, to leave himself a tap-in. When he’s calm, he’s good. But when he’s mad, he’s untouchable.
