As statements of intent go they do not come any more emphatic than Jordan Spieth’s at the 396-yard 1st on Saturday afternoon, where he found the green with his drive and holed the 10ft putt for an eagle – the first on the hole all week. That served warning, if any were needed, that the American is taking his defence of the Claret Jug extremely seriously.
Spieth had handed the trophy back to the R&A on Monday, having failed to realise there was to be a ceremony on the 1st tee to do so, pronounced he had enjoyed the year with it in his keeping, and said that he was hoping it would be only a week until it was back in his hands as a back-to-back champion. His round of 65 lifted him to nine under par and ensured he will be in the last pairing for Sunday’s final round, out on the course at 2.45pm BST.
His eagle putt on the 1st had taken a while to drop, doing a full 360 before it disappeared, and that only added to the sense of drama as the round got under way with roars and cheers breaking out on various parts of the course, and regularly, as the players feasted in the relatively benign conditions. “The intent was to get by the pot bunkers 60 yards short,” Spieth said of the drive later, “but when we got close Bones [from US TV] said: ‘You’re putting’.”
The Texan’s tee-shot at the 2nd could not have been more different, however, and he saw it finish halfway up the grassy bank on the right-hand side of the fairway. “It’s OK, a lot better than I thought walking up,” he told his caddie, Michael Greller, when he got there and Spieth not only got a good contact on it with an iron and using “a baseball swing”, as he described it, his shot found the middle of the green to set up another birdie chance from 35ft.
He left that one short despite being right on line and was to do the same from 10ft at the next, although he finally joined his playing partner Kevin Chappell, who had peeled off three successive birdies from the 1st, in a mass tie at six under and the joint lead after hitting a fine approach to the 4th. He then missed a great chance to hit the front on his own at the 5th, pushing a straightforward six-foot putt to the right of the pin.
Spieth was to improve on his three-under front nine with another birdie at the 11th and completed a great save at the 12th with a long shot from a bunker to five feet to stay at seven under. A two-putt birdie at Spectacles, the other par-five on the course, after his drive flirted with a fairway bunker on the left – a “good break,” he admitted later – followed after he knocked his second shot to 30ft. And he found the top level of the 16th green with a superb tee shot and holed the putt to take the outright lead at nine under, though he was joined at the end by Xander Schauffele and Kevin Kisner. Chappell finished on seven under and will be in the penultimate pairing with Kisner.
If the rest of the field was unaware of Spieth’s hunger for more success after a poor run of results since finishing third at the Masters – his capabilities have never been in question – it was quickly writ large on the leaderboards for all to see. It was the round of a champion, with no dropped shots, 13 pars, four birdies and that eagle.
“The fact that I won last year, I think helps my sleep a little bit,” Spieth said. “I don’t find any expectations right now. This is right after the round, but I feel pretty calm because of the progress made in the game. If I felt like I got away with a lot of stuff and I really wasn’t progressing and just made a lot of putts, then I’d probably feel more tension. But I like where the striking’s at. It can improve a little bit, but all aspects of the game got better today.
“I felt like I had something I had to prove to other people with last year’s Open and to myself. Really to myself more than anything. I don’t feel like I have to prove anything to anyone at this point. I’m playing golf for me now.
“We’ve got pretty much a new tournament tomorrow. It’s a new animal, we have 20mph forecast winds. I’m not getting ahead of myself, we are just in a good position. I can draw on all my major experiences, good and bad, but I might have to change my gameplan given the winds.”
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