As the PGA Tour swept through Texas, its latest stop being at Ben Hogan’s place at Colonial, Jordan Speith rebounded from some of his recent lows to claim his first victory in his home state, and at the same time exorcise some of the personal demons left over from his collapse at Augusta. The 22-year-old showed himself to be the class of the field on the final Sunday after opening up with nine straight pars, a three-hole birdie blitz lifted him into the lead.
He did drop one shot but there was no sign of imminent collapse this time, instead he went ahead and produced what will probably go on to be considered the three most unlikely consecutive birdies in golf history. On the 16th he holed a big 20 foot put on a treacherous green, before driving the 17th tee ball towards the gallery. When it is your day though, it’s your day and the drive from Speith rebounded off a marshall and almost made it back to the fairway. Speith was quick to sign a glove and present it to the marshall, before hitting his next shot, a nine-iron over the back of the green and right up against the TV tower. Awarded relief, he dropped the ball onto a bare batch of ground before hitting a shot we will all see a thousand times. He seemed to be looking to chip to the fringe and let the ball release for a tap-in par, instead it landed perfectly and rolled straight into the cup.
The look of pure shock and joy that spread across his face, are part of what makes Jordan Speith so well liked. As his camp kept saying there are many worse things in life than not repeating as Masters champion, but the manner in which he lost that tournament did leave some emotional scars, and since then he was outplayed along with the rest of the field by Jason Day at The Players Championship, but winning can cure a lot of ills and coming to the 18th tee, Speith was in the enviable position of knowing that a bogie would have been good enough for victory and thus he elected to take a fairway metal off the tee before hitting a nine-iron into the safe part of the green around 35 foot from the flag. Three puts from there for the title, not a bit of it, Speith calmly rolled in the 35 footer for a closing birdie shortly after acting as a cheerleader for playing partner Ryan Palmer whose second so nearly dropped in the hole.
To see how Speith rebounded to claim another victory and listening to him speak afterwards, it was obvious that winning in Texas meant as much to Speith as winning in Ireland meant to Rory McIlroy last week and sets up what looks to be an amazing few weeks as we build up to the U.S. Open at Oakmont. The top three in the world, Day, Speith and McIlroy are in the strange situation of each having won the last tournament in which they competed.
To add extra spice for the viewing public all three are scheduled to be at this week’s Memorial tournament, hosted of course by Jack Nicklaus. Can any of these three get a mental edge this week? Or will someone else emerge to challenge? What is for sure that as the three friends are all hitting form and will battle it out over the U.S. Open and The Open in the coming weeks, the battle for number one in the rankings is going to be compulsive viewing.
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