in Blog, In The Clubhouse by Jeff Waters

JORDAN SPIETH IS NOT A ONE-HIT WONDER

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For those casual golf fans out there that don’t follow the sport of golf other than watching the Majors on TV, engage in social media or watch late night television, Jordan Spieth seems to have appeared out of nowhere. He shows up, wins the Masters, the attendant green jacket, a lot of money and accidental watchers of the sport somehow think he won the lottery.

But I’m here to tell you this 21 year old kid from Dallas, Texas, with a solid upbringing and a Jesuit education, has already done things in golf very few have ever accomplished not named Jack Nicklaus or Tiger Woods.

For starters: He and Tiger are the only players to win multiple United States Junior Amateur titles; he was the Rolex Junior Player of the Year in 2009; was named the best junior golfer in the United States in the 2009 Polo Junior Golf rankings; played in his first PGA Tour event at sixteen and made the cut finishing in the top twenty; selected for the 2011 Walker Cup matches and did not lose a match; was a 2008, 2009 and 2010 AJGA First-Team All-American; reached the quarterfinals of the 2011 US Amateur; played collegiately at  the University of Texas where his team won the 2012 NCAA National Championship; turned professional and won the 2013 John Deere Classic becoming the first teenage winner on the PGA Tour since Ralph Guldahl in 1931; selected to the 2013 Presidents Cup team; won the 2013 Rookie of the Year on the PGA Tour; almost four million dollars; and to cap it off, all these accomplishments happened while he was still a teenager.

Last year, in his first full year as a PGA Tour member, he won twice, finished second in the Masters, played on the Ryder Cup and increased his winnings to almost four and a half million dollars.

He started this year with five top ten’s and a win at the Valspar Championship. In his last three starts before Augusta he finished 1st, 2nd and 2nd , climbed to number four in the world golf rankings, won over three million dollars before Easter and somehow people think this kid just showed up and won the 2015 Masters.

I have often said, whenever I am asked for my opinion on the state of professional golf and the trickle-down effect on golf in general, for golf to be successful, marketable and popular to the masses it needs: either a dominate force, like Tiger Woods; or a genuine rivalry like we saw during the Jack Nicklaus years when Arnold Palmer, Gary Player, Johnny Miller and a number of other players took their shot at Jack.

In the years following Jack’s success, 18 professional majors, and his ascendency to the best player to have ever played the game, golf lost its popularity due to the fact that no one could take Jack’s place as the dominant force in golf, until the arrival of Tiger Woods.

Tiger, who famously taped Jack’s accomplishments to his bedroom wall, came close to Jack’s records and his performance on the golf course for the last 10-15 years has been magical. TV ratings were up, interest in golf bloomed, “The Tiger Effect” it was called, and golf was marketable again.  The problem with Tiger’s reign, as the best player of his era, is the rivalry with other players was almost nonexistent. There were usurpers: Phil Mickelson, Steve Stricker, Ernie Els, VJ Singh, Jim Furyk and others all took their shot at Tiger but none could sustain lasting and long term competitiveness or create a legitimate excitement in their rivalry.

With Tiger succumbing to age and injuries, golf’s popularity has declined, television ratings are down and casual fans everywhere are losing interest in the game. Returning to my main argument, for golf to be successful, it needs a mega-superstar or a genuine rivalry between the best of their era to sustain significance in the world of sports.

This brings our conversation squarely back to Jordan Spieth, his recent triumphs on the world stage and another young superstar, Rory McIlory. Golf’s trajectory and its future are now squarely in the hands of these prodigies and now equal rivals for center stage in the world of professional golf.

Both are under twenty-five, have won major golf tournaments, genuinely nice people and both are set to gain their place in golf history to be included among the best to have ever played the game. After Spieth’s win at Augusta, they are ranked number one and two in the world. It’s no coincidence that television ratings for this Masters were the highest since 2008, Tigers last great year.

Golf needs this rivalry for many reasons and it should only get better. Jordan Spieth and Rory McIlroy are the real deal and both are going to be around for a long time. I and millions of golf fans worldwide are excited to vicariously join them on their journey as they take golf to unfathomable new heights and glory.

At the Masters I’m Jeff Waters

 

Jeff Waters, MBA, PGA Master Professional, and President /CEO of Rocky Mountain Golf Enterprises, a licensed and registered Utah business utilizing golf as the marketing tool, has over fifty years of experience in the commerce of golf as a player, teacher, administrator, and small business owner. A well-known broadcast journalist, correspondent, and commentator, Jeff has traveled widely for the Rocky Mountain Golf Network, attending, announcing, reporting on, and broadcasting major sporting events in arenas, ballparks, stadiums, and golf courses across the country. As a member of the Golf Writers Association of America, Jeff has also published extensively throughout the regional print market for Utah Golf News, Rocky Mountain Golfer, Golf Today, Utah Fairways, Jackson Hole Golf News, and Utah Golf Magazine, as well as other platforms, including articles, blog posts, podcasts, internet forums, and on his website at wwwjeffgolfguy.com.