Every golfer at one time or another melts like high school booster-club chocolate in the sun. Some certainly more often than others. Some more publicly than most.
When Jordan Spieth took his five-shot lead to the back nine of the last Sunday of last year’s Masters, he should have been aboard a horse-drawn carriage, as in any other coronation. Coming off four consecutive birdies, he was well on his way to becoming the first defending champion of this most florid of the majors in 14 years.
But then, right before our eyes, pieces of Spieth seemed to liquefy, spilling over his fancy golf shoes and onto the perfect green grass. Bogey on No. 10. Bogey on 11. And, then, on the par-3 12th, there was the kind of major collapse never before seen from this now 23-year-old champion.
Right there at the crook of Amen Corner, Spieth deposited not one, but two balls in Rae’s Creek, on the way to a dream-killing quadruple bogey. Fans on that most lovely curve of Augusta National fell as silent as if witnessing a funeral.
Thenceforth, the world would more remember who didn’t win the 2016 Masters rather than who did. (Hint: It was Danny Willett).
The 2017 Masters is upon us, an appointment on the calendar that Spieth was approaching as if it were part Mardi Gras, part root canal. Yeah, it’s great to go back to a place where he has a pretty good track record (a win and two seconds). And, equally yeah, he wants to simply get this Masters over with and put another year — as well as the questions about the Dissolve at No. 12 — behind him.
He said as much in Hawaii at the start of the year.
“No matter what happens at this year’s Masters — whether I can grab the jacket back or I miss the cut or I finish 30th — it will be nice having this Masters go by. The Masters lives on for a year. And it will be nice once this year’s is finished, from my point of view, to be brutally honest with you.”
Dealing with the inevitable cruelties of golf is nearly as important as working on one’s short game. Those who bind their self-inflicted wounds and move on are the ones who endure. Those who don’t, fade into the woods like a lost ball.
Rory McIlroy knows exactly what faces Spieth upon his return to the Masters. He hit a famously wayward Sunday tee shot on No. 10 in 2011 — it landed between two cabins far left of the fairway, where pros just never venture. A triple-bogey 7 there; a three-putt bogey on No. 11 and a four-putt double on No. 12 defined his final-round 80 (McIlroy began the day with a four-stroke lead).
To this day, the Masters remains the one major McIlroy has been unable to bag. His average finish in the five Masters since 2011: 17th.
“Of course it hurt, and it still hurts. Of course it does,” McIlroy said. “But at the same time I’ve moved on, and I’ve won majors and I’ve made a pretty good career for myself since that. Still, I think back and think about what could have been and if that hadn’t have gone wrong I wouldn’t have to answer the questions that I have to answer at this time of the year every year until I win one.”
From that experience, McIlroy said he learned. He was too absorbed with Charl Schwartzel’s charge from behind, he said. Too intent upon keeping up with the quick pace of playing partner Angel Cabrera. He vowed never to make those mistakes again. Who knew a golf lesson could hurt so much?
That’s the thing about Masters meltdowns in particular. The course never changes for this major. Every year you are forced to return to the crash scene and attempt to navigate it once more. Flashbacks forever have a ready stage at Augusta National.
One expert on the subject believes Spieth will be just fine.
“I’m sure when he opens his wardrobe and already sees a green jacket in there, he can console himself,” McIlroy said with a smile.
“It happens. Everyone’s had tough losses where things haven’t gone their way. And it’s just about getting back up on the horse and getting after it again. I think once Jordan feels his first couple of holes — I think once Jordan gets past the 12th hole in the first round this year — it will be over and done with.”
Spieth has consoled himself with two victories since his Masters misery, including a four-stroke romp at Pebble Beach this year. All signs point to a good, solid scabbing over from a year ago. Not that his adventure at No. 12 won’t leave a scar.
Certainly Schwartzel can regale the fellows at the champions dinner with tales of his 2011 Masters — the hole-out eagle on No. 3 on Sunday, birdies on the four closing holes. He also could, if asked, tell them in excruciating detail how he blew the 2015 South African Open.
“A four-shot lead with five holes to go. I was cruising. It disappeared in front of my eyes,” he recalled recently, when asked his most traumatic moment on the course. He went 3 over on the closing three holes and lost in a playoff.
For every yang in a player’s life, there must be a corresponding yin. That is the Tao of golf.
It’s how he processes the negative that matters.
“You’ve got to put it behind you. It takes time. It’s easier said than done. But time heals a lot of things,” Schwartzel said. “The quicker you stop thinking about it and the quicker people stop talking about it, the quicker you get over it. You’ve got to make new memories.”
There is another emotion to overcome, one not generally associated with these confident pros who own every shot in the bag.
“I think you’re a little embarrassed, too. You do that, it’s humiliating,” Schwartzel said.
Henrik Stenson won his first major championship — last year’s British Open — in a classic duel with Phil Mickelson. He is 40 years old and has been a professional for better than 20 years. Yet he can still feel the faintest sting from a blown mid-level tournament in Sweden when he was an amateur: “A horrific tee shot on the 17th hole, ended up doubling it and missed out of the playoff by a shot,” he said.
“I would say I got over it, but I can still remember it,” he said with a smile.
“I’ve had my little bag of heartbreaks in terms of losses on the golf course. But I think it still motivates you. If you’re competitive, then you’re going to take that as fuel to try and become better and learn from your mistakes and do the right things when you need to in the future.”
For Spieth specifically, the Masters pain didn’t end when the last putt fell on No. 18 that Sunday. There was tradition to serve. He had hang out and drape the green jacket over Willett’s shoulders, ceremonially handing over to the Brit the title he had given him a couple of hours earlier.
His handling of that moment was telling.
“It’s quite astounding, really, in terms of how well he took it,” Willett said. “You look at it since, it has not really affected him within his game. It would have affected a few guys, but because of the class of guy and class of player, he has kept moving forward with his game nicely.”
Eight months afterward, Spieth even approached his most human moment on a golf course with a bit of good humor. Standing on the tee on No. 12 in December with a couple of Augusta National members, he made a bit of a show of his return to the scene.
“Guys, we have some demons to get rid of here. I’d appreciate if y’all stood to the side of the tee box while I do my work here,” Spieth recalled telling them.
He hit an 8-iron to 15 feet and canned the birdie putt. “I probably gave a big fist pump. I was walking around with my hands up, like the demon’s gone,” he said.
Spieth said he birdied the hole again when he returned the next day.
The setting will be a bit more grim when Spieth reports to No. 12 on Thursday. How many times will those two water balls have been mentioned and replayed over the last year, the last month, the last week? How often had those two swings played in a loop in his head? And, when he needs it most, can he find the mute button for all that noise?
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