Jordan Spieth at Dean & DeLuca Invitational 2016: Sunday Score and Reaction
In two of his previous three events, Jordan Spieth had coughed up chances to win via frustrating fourth-round collapses. For a while Sunday, it looked as though he would add a third.
Then, Spieth kicked it into high gear and reminded the world why he used to be the sport's top-ranked player.
The world No. 2 carded a five-under 65 on Sunday, bringing his overall score to 17 under, to defeat Harris English by three strokes and win the 2016 Dean & DeLuca Invitational. He nailed all six of his birdies on the back nine after his front nine saw him miss a number of opportunities to create separation.
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Robby Kalland of CBS Sports put it aptly:
The win marks Spieth's eighth on the PGA Tour and his first since January's Hyundai Tournament of Champions. He had finished outside the top 10 in seven of his last nine tournaments.
The lone exceptions were his startling collapse at the Masters and his elimination at the WGC-Accenture Match Play, which has a different set of rules. A final-round 73 at the Masters caused Spieth to blow a five-shot lead in what felt like a dispiriting turning point in the 22-year-old's career.
| Par | 5 | 4 | 4 | 3 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 3 | 4 | 35 | |
| Score | 5 | 4 | 4 | 3 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 3 | 4 | 35 | |
| Par | 4 | 5 | 4 | 3 | 4 | 4 | 3 | 4 | 4 | 35 | 70 |
| Score | 3 | 4 | 3 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 2 | 3 | 3 | 30 | 65 |
Spieth then missed the cut at The Players Championship and blew a chance at winning last week's AT&T Byron Nelson. After closing within two strokes of the lead through 54 holes last week, Spieth shot a four-over 74 and tied for 18th.
With a one-stroke advantage heading into Sunday, Spieth seemed destined to follow a similar narrative. He opened the round with nine consecutive pars, causing him to briefly drop out of the lead on a day when most of the top golfers shot under par. Seven attempts at birdie were left on the green; Spieth's best putt on the front nine was a 32-foot par save on the par-three eighth.
The PGA Tour provided Spieth's reaction:
That putt arguably reshaped the course of Spieth's round. He narrowly missed another long putt for birdie on No. 9, making the turn, trailing Ryan Palmer by one stroke.
On the back nine, the floodgates opened for one of the best nine-hole stretches of Spieth's season. A smooth 20-footer on No. 10 began a streak of three straight birdies, as Spieth set himself up on Nos. 11 and 12 with a pair of beautiful approaches. The momentum briefly paused after a drive into the greenside bunker resulted in Spieth dropping a stroke, at the time giving English a chance to pull ahead.
It wasn't to be.
Spieth overcame another bunker shot on No. 14 and a frustrating birdie miss on No. 15 before turning it up a notch for his final three holes. He calmly nailed a 20-foot birdie putt on the par-three 16th and sent the dagger English's way when he sank a pitch from the greenside rough to birdie No. 17.
It's hard to tell whether Spieth's reaction was happiness or relief:
With the tournament in hand, all Spieth had to do on No. 18 was avoid a double bogey and get into the clubhouse. Instead, he knocked down a cold-blooded 34-foot birdie putt and walked out of his home state triumphant.
Spieth will undoubtedly hope this erases the dark cloud that's been hovering over his head since his collapse at Augusta. This has been far from a carbon copy of his idyllic 2015 campaign. Spieth has struggled nearly every step of the way since March, interspersing shots that show off his generational talent with frustrating lapses.
The U.S. Open will not offer a respite for those mistakes. Oakmont is an unforgiving course, as all U.S. Open venues tend to be. Having played three straight weeks, Spieth will make it four at next week's Memorial Tournament.
We'll get a glimpse of what to expect at Oakmont if Spieth's back in contention a week from now.
Post-Round Reaction
Spieth pointed to a higher power for his luck, per David Humphrey of the Star-Telegram: “I think the golf gods are certainly on our side. I caught some breaks today.”
He also talked putting: “I was wondering how many putts we had on the back. I still felt like I was hitting good shots; the speed was just off on my putting on the front nine. I had a couple of [them] that would have gone in had I put the perfect speed on them.”
And the chip on No. 8: “I didn’t deserve par on [No.] 8 by any means, just a poor first shot. Then I drew a really tough lie and kind of just de-celled on the chip,” Spieth said. “Just to have that putt go in, you can hit a perfect putt from that distance, and it’s still got to be lucky for it to actually find the bottom of the hole.”
Spieth wasn't super enthused about hecklers reminding him of the Masters: “It’s not fun to hear people in the crowd walking down today yelling out 'remember the Masters.' That’s just what you hear. That’s going to happen. To get over that, to get over that hurdle in our third tournament back says a lot about our character out there.”
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