History argues loudly against a Spieth slam

Still, players other than Spieth, great players, have won the first two legs of the slam only to fall short. They have been done in by stiff necks, global conflagration, end-of-the-world winds and even the calendar. All manner of elements have conspired to make golf’s grand slam one of the enduring mythic quests in sports.

In fact, the only man to do it — Bobby Jones, in 1930 — was so gassed by the golfing gauntlet that he retired from competition shortly afterward.

“The strain of golf is wrecking my health, stunting me in my business ambitions and I’m dead tired of it,” he is supposed to have told a fellow player in the British Amateur clubhouse shortly after finishing off the fourth major of the time.

“Maybe in some ways the pressure on my grandfather was less (than on Spieth and the modern seekers of the slam),” Bobby Jones IV, an Atlanta-area psychologist, said, “because it was something that had never been done. And few people thought it could be done.

“But he felt the pressure, no doubt. And remember this was the beginning of the Great Depression. People were betting great sums of money on him and he knew it. To be honest, that was probably a better investment than anything else available at the time.”

The definition of golf’s grand slam — or the Impregnable Quadrilateral as it was known in Jones’ more syllabic day — has changed over the generations. For Jones it meant sweeping first the British Amateur and British Open before returning home by ocean liner to claim the U.S. Open and Amateur titles. Two of those were dropped in favor of the Masters and PGA Championship.

Regardless of the shifting nature of the grand slam, the difficulty of what still faces Spieth is written large all over the history of those who, like him, got at least halfway to the grail. So tantalizingly close, but no Slam.

Craig Wood, 1941

Wood was the victim of Gene Sarazan’s famous double eagle on Sunday of the 1935 Masters, losing to the Squire in a 36-hole playoff the next day. But in ’41, he became the tournament’s first wire-to-wire winner. Then he won the U.S. Open by three strokes.

There was no British Open that year, the island nation being rather consumed by WWII at the time. No fan of golf, that Hitler.

Ben Hogan, 1953

A 40-year-old who had survived a horrific car-bus collision, Hogan found a second prime in ’53.

His Saturday 66 was his lowest-ever round at the Masters, and Hogan rode that to a second green jacket. At the U.S. Open in Oakmont (Pa.), he finished 3-3-3 on the closing holes and six strokes clear of Sam Snead.

This was an epic run. But, now, here was the rub. So disinterested was golf about the grand-slam lineup that the British Open actually overlapped with the PGA Championship. Not even Hogan could be in two courses on two continents at the same time.

He chose the British Open, his only appearance in the tournament, and won by four strokes. Hogan still got a ticker-tape parade on his return to the States, for his “Triple Crown.”

Arnold Palmer, 1960

His was a legendary down payment on a possible slam.

The Open seemed to be shut for Palmer, as he trailed by seven strokes after three rounds. His finish at that year’s Masters — two birdies on the last three holes to beat Ken Venturi — was puny by comparison to what was about to happen at Cherry Hills (Colo.).

Palmer came out and made his fourth-round statement, driving the short par-4 first hole. That would be the first of six birdies over the opening seven holes on his way to a stunning comeback.

Palmer’s presence at the British Open single-handedly made that tournament relevant to the American audience. And for all the excitement, what a let-down: Despite a final-round 68, Palmer lost by a stroke to a 39-year-old Aussie named Kel Nagle, a player who had never before finished in the top 10 in a major.

Ant-Man had just beaten Superman.

Jack Nicklaus, 1972

Nicklaus was on a roll, the only player under par in the Masters and going wire-to-wire at Pebble Beach in the U.S. Open.

Then he woke up in Scotland with a stiff neck.

He still played relatively well early in that British Open, but was six shots short of Lee Trevino after three rounds. A stirring comeback of his own fell short when he bogeyed 16 and Trevino chipped in for par on 17 to beat Nicklaus by a stroke.

Tiger Woods, 2002

Woods has won four consecutive majors, but not in the same calendar year (the Tiger Slam stretched from the 2000 U.S. Open to the ’01 Masters).

The following year he arrived at Muirfield with the first two majors in his pocket and a full bag of confidence. He once maintained the grand slam was “easily within reason,” and that almost seemed conceivable back then.

After two rounds he trailed Ernie Els by two strokes, but by the end of that Saturday, Woods was 11 off the lead. The fickle Scottish weather delivered a terrible storm just as Woods was teeing off among the late groups. In howling winds and sideways rain he shot 81. And that was back when shooting 81 was big news for Woods.

Those are some pretty stout ghosts that accompany Spieth to the first tee at St. Andrews. And they line up to whisper in his ear the improbability of the task at hand.

But let it be known he at least has the backing of the Jones family.

“In some ways I’d want the grand slam to remain (solely) with my grandfather, ” Jones said, “but in reality, I didn’t get the chance to live in those times and see it. To live in these times and see the quality of the competition and the quality of person that Jordan Spieth is, that’s really special.”