Slaying the Tiger

by Shane Ryan

  The next day I showed up at the tenth hole with my tape recorder. There—after more handshakes—Spieth told me we’d be chatting for only one hole, because he didn’t want to take time away from his pro-am partners, and he had a friend coming to carry his bag the rest of the way.

  Bad news, I thought, but what the hell. So for thirteen minutes and thirty seconds I fired questions at him, trying to prioritize and get a year’s worth of work done in a single hole. When he finished putting out on the tenth green, I shadowed him while he signed flags for the kids lining the ropes. “I’d love to do pictures right after, guys,” he said, and when he spotted a man holding a camera, he politely warned him to keep it out of the way.

  I kept walking with him to the tee, trying to squeeze every last second out of our one and only private encounter. Finally, after answering one final question, he turned to me and shook my hand. “I appreciate it, man,” he said. His intent was clear, just as it had been with the kids—he’s learned the veteran’s trick of delivering negative messages with a positive turn of phrase. Although I was disappointed that our time had been cut short, there was another part of me that felt grateful. Of all the ways I’d been told to fuck off over the course of the year—and there were many—this was by far the nicest.

  * * *

  On the 11th, when Beck missed an 8-footer to halve the hole, Spieth’s dad, Shawn, said to no one in particular, “The door’s open now, buddy.”

  —USGA’s KEN KLAVON, in a recap of the 2008 U.S. Amateur semifinals

  Spieth is the oldest child of Shawn and Chris, former college athletes—baseball at Lehigh for Shawn, basketball at nearby Moravian for Chris—and high school sweethearts from tiny Hellertown, Pennsylvania, in the Lehigh Valley. Part of Jordan’s maturity can be chalked up to the hard-earned perspective that prevails in his family—Chris’s mother suffered a brain aneurysm when she was only four, which split up the family until the father could reunite them. When Jordan’s younger sister, Ellie, was born, she had neurological problems that threatened her life, and Jordan grew up volunteering at her school for special-needs children. The pain of real life was never an abstraction for Spieth, and even if his parents hadn’t emphasized humility, circumstances would never have allowed his ego to spiral out of control.

  Spieth grew up in north Dallas, where Shawn—“a man’s man” with “incredible intensity,” per Spieth’s college coach John Fields—worked in various business ventures, from Alcoa to Sprint to a social media startup. His mother quit her job at Neiman Marcus to raise the three children before taking administrative work at Jordan’s schools when the kids grew up. The Spieths were middle class all the way, with a modest home that they built up over the years. Jordan’s bedroom was small, and stuffed with trophies.

  As a kid, Spieth told me, his personality contained equal parts of his mom and dad, and he inherited an extreme competitiveness from both. They gave him a plastic set of golf clubs when he was very young, and when the family went to the beaches of North Carolina for family reunions in the summer, his grandfather would make him a new club. He had a plastic basketball rim and baseball equipment, too—Spieth worried aloud that he was coming off like a spoiled kid when he listed off his gear—and he loved playing outdoors.

  Baseball was his game in the early years, and he became a strong lefty pitcher (though he golfs right-handed) who made traveling all-star teams. Like many golfers I spoke to, though, he didn’t like the loss of control in team sports. Unlike most golfers, he explained the flip side of that coin—when the team won, he didn’t like sharing the joy. On the links, the glory was his alone.

  He started golfing around age eight at Brookhaven Country Club, staying from morning to sunset. He’d play with older kids, which kept his competitive instincts sharp. His parents didn’t push him, but his father asked him to set goals at every level, and Spieth hit most of them. When he turned twelve, he shot a 63 at a tournament in Waco, and that’s when he began to believe he could play golf for a living.

  That year, he started working with Cameron McCormick, a respected swing coach who still works with him today. Spieth began playing AJGA events, and his first title came in 2007, where he defeated Justin Thomas at Walnut Creek in a match that would have echoes in his college career. At age sixteen, he earned an exemption into the Byron Nelson Classic, his first PGA Tour event. Nobody expected Spieth to actually compete, with the exception of Spieth himself. In a feat that’s almost too amazing for hyperbole, he made the cut and finished sixteenth.

  When he played an AJGA event shortly after, there was such a demand from the media to speak with the budding star that Stephen Hamblin took the rare step of organizing a press day for him. He’d done it just once before, and that was for Tiger Woods. When Spieth took the stage, Hamblin still remembers the self-assurance as he told the media that he felt ready to compete on the PGA Tour. If the journalists thought they were getting a wide-eyed kid who had just fluked his way into a once-in-a-lifetime moment, they were shocked by the composure of the young man onstage. For many, it was the first indication of the preternatural maturity that would come to define Spieth’s public persona. His confidence never came off as arrogant, and his politeness felt genuine. Already, somehow, he was the complete package.

  A fierce recruiting battle ensued between Texas, Oklahoma State, Stanford, USC, and UCLA. John Fields, the Texas coach, first saw Spieth when he was eleven years old at a junior event in Ardmore, Oklahoma, and he became enthralled. He made it a point to watch him play whenever he could, and when he traveled to Trump National for the 2009 U.S. Junior Amateur, he was approached on the course by Donald Trump himself. Trump was already campaigning to hold a U.S. Open or PGA Championship at one of his courses, and during their conversation, Fields told him with no uncertainty that fifteen-year-old Jordan Spieth was going to win the event.

  “How can you tell me that, with so much golf left?” Trump asked, but Fields knew. And he was right—Spieth won the medal play portion, and blazed his way through the match play rounds to capture the biggest tournament of his career. Trump sent Fields a note calling him “the predictor,” and two years later, Spieth became the second player in history to win the event twice. The first—you’ll notice a pattern here—was Tiger Woods.

  Fields got the big call when he came back from a vacation in Hawaii. “I’m not going to beat around the bush,” Spieth said. “I’m coming to Texas. I’m coming to help you win national championships.”

  Spieth missed the first event of Texas’s season his freshman year—he was busy going 2-0-1 at the Walker Cup—but he was back for the Jerry Pate event in Alabama, where he lost a final round lead. At the very next tournament, at Muirfield Village, two bogeys and a double on the last three holes cost him another win.

  When he returned to Texas, one of the first people he saw was Chuck Cook, an Austin-based instructor known as “The Wizard” who has worked with Tom Kite and Payne Stewart, and counts Jason Dufner, Keegan Bradley, and Luke Donald as students. Cook was in his late sixties then, but he hadn’t lost his no-nonsense approach or his love for needling the players. It sometimes got to the point, Fields told me, that Cook’s barbs went over the edge. When he saw Spieth in a hallway at the golf academy, he stopped and gave him a long look.

  “Hey, Jordan,” he said. “Just how big a lead do you need before you can win a golf tournament?”

  Spieth managed to put a good face on and take it in stride, but inside, Fields said, he was steaming. The next tournament was at Isleworth, and this time Spieth had his foot on the gas the whole time. When he won in a runaway, he couldn’t wait to return to Texas to find Cook.

  “What do you think about that?” he asked. “Was that good enough?”

  Fields witnessed Spieth’s competitive instincts sharpen throughout the year. In one practice match against junior Cody Gribble—who, unlike Patrick Reed, had stuck to his eighth-grade Texas commitment—the teammates came up the 18th green so angry at each other that Fields was genuinely worried
that they might fight. Gribble poured in a fifteen-footer on the last green and pointed defiantly at Spieth, but the freshman answered by sinking a ten-foot birdie of his own to win the match.

  “If they hadn’t been in different carts, they might have gone at it right there,” said Fields. Minutes later, they were best friends again, but there had been no mistaking Spieth’s fire in the heat of battle.

  He went on to win four tournaments that year, and the Longhorns entered the national championships at Riviera as the number 1 seed. In the second of three stroke play rounds, Spieth collapsed on the back nine, and his teammates didn’t fare much better. Heading into the third and final day, they were ranked thirteenth, and in serious danger of missing the eight-team match play round. But Spieth rallied to shoot a 69 on the final day, and Texas finished in third place, safely inside the cutoff.

  The Longhorns coasted to the finals, where Alabama waited. At number 1 singles, Spieth would face fellow freshman Justin Thomas—the same player he had topped at an AJGA event five years earlier, and whom he had been competing against for most of his life. Thomas won NCAA freshman of the year and player of the year that season, edging Spieth out for both awards, but Spieth was confident. “I’ve got a great feeling about this,” he told Fields. “I always play well against Justin. I think I can get him.”

  By the 15th hole, Spieth had established a two-up lead. He took out his 4-iron for the approach on the long par 4, and the shot looked great off the club. He knew if he could land it in the middle of the green, the slope would guide it toward the hole. The ball touched down in the perfect spot, and began tracking. It moved like a well-struck putt, breaking left to right and gaining speed. Thirty feet later, it dropped in the hole for an eagle two.

  Thomas stared at him across the fairway in disbelief.

  “Nice fucking shot,” he said.

  Spieth won the match on the next hole, and Texas won the national championship. Another promise delivered.

  That summer, Spieth finished as low amateur at the U.S. Open, and made another cut at the John Deere Classic in July. The fact that he was succeeding on Tour without necessarily having his “A-Game,” often on strange courses, gave him the confirmation he needed—it was time to turn pro.

  That plan took an early hit when he failed to make it to the final stage of Q-School, and was left with no status for either tour. He found his way into two Web.com events in early 2013, finishing top ten in both, and was just a few thousand dollars short of full status when he got word that he was in the next week’s PGA Tour field in Puerto Rico with a sponsor’s exemption. John Peterson, a fellow pro, told him he’d be crazy to leave the Web.com circuit at such an important time. Spieth ignored the advice and flew to Puerto Rico, where he finished in a tie for second. A brilliant career had been launched.

  From there, he took the Tour by storm, notching four more top-ten finishes before arriving at the John Deere Classic in mid-July. Three straight 65s, and an incredible forty-four-foot hole-out from the bunker on the 18th hole on Sunday—“the luckiest shot of my life,” he said later—put him into a playoff with David Hearn and Zach Johnson. It took five holes to decide, but a final par sealed the deal for Spieth—he had actually won. At nineteen, he became the youngest tournament winner in eighty-two years.

  The momentum carried him through the year. He turned twenty, two weeks later, and nearly secured his second win that August before Reed beat him in a playoff. He took Rookie of the Year honors at season’s end, and was selected by Fred Couples for the President’s Cup team, which America won thanks in part to his 2-1 record in pairs with Steve Stricker.

  The great white hope had arrived, and he was good.

  * * *

  “Spieth (rhymes with teeth) has always been an old soul. He was raised in Dallas to be a Texas gentleman—sir and ma’am were built into his vocabulary, and community service was stressed through school and church.”

  —ALAN SHIPNUCK, Sports Illustrated

  “Lacking neither confidence nor grace, 20-year-old Jordan Spieth is a young head with an old soul…Off the course the word universally chosen by his peers to describe him was ‘mature.’ ”

  —JIM MORIARTY, Golf Digest

  “You can’t talk about Spieth without mentioning his almost unexplainable maturity…I said early on that whatever his parents were feeding him should be bottled and sold to an entire generation of kids from this ‘look at me’ generation.”

  —JEFF SKINNER, Links Life Golf

  “Jordan Spieth is one mature 20-year-old. A faultless performance in front of the press.”

  —Sky Sports Twitter

  “He speaks as if he has neither time nor interest in being 20. He sits straight. He looks questioners in the eye. He doesn’t stammer or stumble. He doesn’t raise his voice or lower it. Despite 82-degree heat Saturday, he appears to have no interest in sweating.”

  —TOM SORENSEN, Raleigh News & Observer

  For all I know, the hype could be true. The tricky part about understanding Spieth is that off the course, he’s never going to give anything away. He’s too smart and too canny, and he knows he’s got a good thing going. But I don’t believe the image is an act—if it is, he deserves an Oscar.

  You won’t find many golfers who can keep their composure at all times, and still avoid the boring patter of lesser personalities. Spieth’s handlers keep him close, scanning for any sign of subversive elements, but the vigilance is unnecessary. He isn’t stupid, and he’s not going to embarrass himself by telling an off-color joke, or spitting out a string of curses on national television, or hopping from bed to bed with escorts who will one day destroy his reputation. He just stands before the hordes of journalists, left hand on his waist, elbow jutting out, making smart observations and tame jokes. As a writer, you’ll get enough information to write your story, and no more. More than any young golfer I’ve met, he obeys his own limits, and he knows when to disappear. If he’s that good at managing his brand at age twenty, he’ll only become more efficient with time.

  One thing Spieth rarely talks about is the immense pressure that comes with being the young face of golf. When I asked him at Doral if it got old answering the same questions about his youth, and whether it created interference in his head since he has to behave like he’s a savvy veteran on the course, he brushed it aside and extolled the virtues of his youth.

  When we spoke at Congressional, though, he opened up about the saviorlike expectations heaped on his shoulders. “I mean, when Tiger’s out,” Spieth said, “people are asking, ‘Are you going to take over the game?’ It’s just ridiculous. First of all, yeah, Tiger’s done for our sport what maybe he and Arnie and Jack and only a couple of people have ever done. And I’d love to have that happen someday, but that’s not going to happen by people telling me that it needs to be me.”

  He pointed out that he still had a year to win his first major to match Tiger’s pace, and when I offered that he must have a good filter in order to exist in this maelstrom of expectations, he told me that he’d had to learn to ignore comments on his articles or the replies to his Twitter posts.

  “People just say stuff with no backing to it,” he said, “with no experience whatsoever. They say stuff just to say stuff, because they feel like they need to barge in on something. And typically I would get bothered by that, but I’m learning to block it out.”

  This was the most open I would see Spieth all year, and it made me wish we had more time to talk. As our interview came to an end, I asked him how someone in his place avoids becoming cynical about the fans, the media, even the game.

  “I don’t think I’m cynical, but it’s hard to answer questions about the future,” he said.

  And then he shook my hand, and we were done.

  * * *

  “I think it’s very tough to describe a person like this, because everybody says the same thing. He’s mature, he’s doing great…but for me it’s more impressive the way he talks to you. The words that he’s using, it�
�s not the normal stuff that—it’s not over-exaggerating, it’s very true. Something like this [is] very rare for someone who is that young.”

  —MARTIN KAYMER

  The endless, breathless soliloquizing about his maturity can become tiresome, but it exists for a reason—the effect is like watching a six-year-old child prodigy solve complex math problems in his head. It happens so often that you know it’s not a fluke or a trick, and yet it never stops feeling slightly unnatural. And like any other exceptional quality, Spieth’s maturity has become marketable.

  Anyone who wants to get beyond the image of Jordan Spieth has to watch him on the golf course. His personality bears a resemblance to Derek Jeter, in the sense that he makes himself into a blank slate onto which you can project your own hopes and desires—hence the hagiographies. Unlike Jeter, though, he wasn’t born with ice water running through his veins—with the pressure on, you can finally start to see the first cracks in the facade.

  Crunch time is where Spieth finally emerges from his shell. He keeps up a constant monologue with himself, criticism mixed with advice, as though there’s a second, neutral Spieth looking down on the one playing golf. His game can be spectacular, but when the nerves hit, he appears vulnerable. At these times, and these times alone, the famous maturity looks less like a solid fact and more like a work in progress.

  In time—even in a short time—he may become a consummate winner with piles of major championships to his name. His past argues for the trajectory—he lost his first youth tournament, and U.S. amateur, and college event, all under pressure, before winning. If and when that day comes, the entity known as Jordan Spieth will present a united front to the public. His transformation into myth will be complete, and the idea of anyone outside his inner circle “knowing” him, even a little, will be laughable.

  In 2014, we still had those rare Sundays; those afternoons when he finds himself in the terrifying glare of contention. There, for the briefest moment, the image shatters, and the rest of us can peer through the cracks and look into the competitive psyche of golf’s child star.