Simplicity the Key to Jordan Spieth Staying Hot in St. Andrews Debut

ST. ANDREWS, Scotland — Golf can be remarkably simple. Hit the ball, find it and hit it again. Golf can also be terribly complex when there’s too much thinking, too much listening to others than to oneself. Jordan Spieth came to that understanding long ago.

Spieth is the best golfer in the world right now, not so much by marching to his own drummer as ignoring the irregular rat-a-tat of others. He’s 21 going on 35, wonderfully skilled—isn’t there a line that says talent trumps experience?—and supremely confident.

He shot a five-under 67 Thursday in the first round of the 144th British Open, without much preparation...here, that is. He prepared by winning the John Deere Classic on Sunday in Illinois. And by winning the tournament he entered before that, the U.S. Open.

Yes, as Tiger Woods said the other day, Spieth wouldn’t completely know the Old Course at St. Andrews until he’d been around it a few times in all sorts of conditions, wind from every direction, off the North Sea, toward the North Sea. But Spieth knows himself and his game.

“In my views,” said Spieth, before a round that left him two shots out, well placed to go after a third straight major, “I’ve seen a tendency for us to sometimes overanalyze.”

In other words, when you’re as brilliant as Spieth, don’t fill your head with the negative thoughts, or with questions. Just play.

Ian Rutherford-USA TODAY Sports

“The toughest part here is just the time change, and it’s only six hours,” said Spieth, who arrived Monday. 

On a golf course, nothing seems tough. It was the same when Woods was at his crest, or years ago with Johnny Miller, who said when he was winning that serenity is knowing your worst shot is still going to be pretty good. Spieth is serene in the extreme.

Knowledge is significant, but it’s not indispensible. There’s a precedent of winning at St. Andrews without having spent days on the course. Tony Lema, a Northern Californian, flew to Scotland, played only nine holes of practice and won the 1964 British. There’s a story that a British journalist, after Lema’s first round, asked him, “How did you find the course?” Lema allegedly answered, “I opened the door of the hotel and there it was.”

There Lema was. There Spieth is. And there the skeptics remain.

A storm was in the forecast, so in his post-round interview Spieth was asked, “With the changing weather, does the real Open start (Friday) morning?”

Spieth had the response of a young man perfectly in control.

Ian Rutherford-USA TODAY Sports

“Well, no, the real Open started today,” he said. “You need to put yourself in good position to have some shots to spare and not worry about a cut line or anything. We don’t know when the rain is going to start, if it’s going to stop, when it’s going to come back. I think it will be a true Scottish day, and that we should enjoy the challenge ahead.”

In the first two rounds, Spieth is grouped with Hideki Matsuyama and the man he beat by a shot in the U.S. Open at Chambers Bay in June, Dustin Johnson. Johnson, taking advantage of his length off the tee, was two shots better than Spieth. That left Spieth unfazed.

Asked if he thought he could beat Johnson, Spieth said, “Yeah I think I can. If I didn’t, I would go ahead and take a flight back home.”

Instead, he is figuratively flying around golf courses. He said Cameron McCormick, the only coach Spieth has had since he was 12, talked to people who through the years have recorded the pin positions at St. Andrews for the past two or three Opens here.

“We plotted our way around,” Spieth said. “I think simple is better, go off the same ‘feels’ we’ve had and just try and execute and get into a rhythm. I think there will be certain points in this tournament where I’ll hit it in spots that I wish I knew better spots, but that will probably happen to everybody.

“I also draw from Cameron’s 'miss small' philosophy where the more pressure you feel in the heat of the moment, the smaller a target you can pick, your misses are going to be smaller.”

A week ago, at the Scottish Open, Paul McGinley, captain of the winning 2014 European Ryder Cup team, discussed Spieth choosing to play the John Deere rather than come to St. Andrews and familiarize himself with the historic Old Course.

“I’m full of admiration for his sense of loyalty to sponsors who have been good to him in the past,” McGinley told reporters. “But at the same time, if you want to be really ruthless, I believe you should, like tennis players, be practicing on the same surface you play in the major. He’s not putting the odds in his favor, put it that way.”

With his swing and approach to golf, Spieth always has the odds in his favor.

Art Spander is a winner of the 2009 Lifetime Achievement Award in Journalism from the PGA of America. Unless otherwise noted, all quotes were obtained firsthand.