The everyday player knows that golf is, by its nature, an unjust witch. The bounces are almost always foul, the putts downhill and the lies — both those in the rough and those written on your partner’s scorecard — egregious.
But sometimes, rarely, it gets everything just right.
If Jordan Spieth didn’t win the Tour Championship and the $10 million FedEx Cup bonus Sunday, then there should have been a Congressional hearing. An assault on the East Lake main gate by an angry, torch-bearing mob. At the very least, a strongly-worded letter to the editor.
But as cleanly as the end of any old Perry Mason episode, justice prevailed this day.
The player who owned the first half of the long season came back around to win golf’s big finish, wrapping up one of the great campaigns ever in a cash-filled and mud-splattered package. Spieth’s excellent adventure now was perfectly balanced.
Spieth didn’t need to win this little wet tee shot contest at East Lake to have himself an historic year, not after winning the Masters and U.S. Open at the tender age of 21 (he has since turned 22).
But that’s not to say that winning didn’t mean a pot load to the youngster, who really earned this victory back on Monday, hitting balls on a mostly deserted East Lake practice range while the rest of the field took a knee.
Especially sweet was a victory here at the end of a playoff series in which Spieth went from next-big-thing to used coffee grounds after two missed cuts.
“It’s a validation to the year,” Spieth said. “It’s a validation to these playoffs, and how you can go through the lows of a season so quickly after you’re so high.
“People can give up on you easily — and then not to care about that, to worry about our own stuff, and to come into the brightest stages and perform. It’s going to give me a lot of confidence going forward.” And he needs more confidence like I-285 needs another car.
Dropping his putter on this 28-player field in hammer of Thor fashion, Spieth cruised to a four-stroke victory Sunday. The only guy in the field to go under par all four days (finishing 9 under) was aptly rewarded with the kind of payday that only a sultan or a .240-hitting Major League utility player could grasp.
With his victory at East Lake Sunday, Spieth:
Collected nearly $11.5 million for winning both the Tour Championship and FedEx Cup championship bonus. His official winnings for the year (just more than $12 million, not including the $10 million bonus) establish a PGA Tour record.
Won his fifth PGA Tour event of the year, the youngest to do so since Horton Smith in 1929.
Retook No. 1 in the world golf rankings.
Eliminated any doubt about his winning Player of the Year next week.
Spieth’s day began carefree, as for fun he skipped balls over the water that fronts the East Lake practice range before his round.
It only got slightly hairy over the two holes for which he has professed a profound dislike — the 530-yard par 4 fifth and the lakefront par 3 sixth. Spieth bogeyed both, matching his bogey total for the previous three rounds. He fell back into a tie with playing partner Henrik Stenson.
Spieth’s zen master caddie Michael Greller settled his man down on the walk off the 7th tee – “He said, all right, there’s no more talking about anything that just happened; you’re still in the lead and we’re still going forward and you’re still going to win this thing,” Spieth recalled. By the time he left the eighth green, he had back a two-shot lead, one that would only grow.
It was going to be pretty much a head-to-head between Spieth and Stenson all day. Only Justin Rose among the others got so much as within two strokes of the lead, and that was but for a single fast twitch muscle spasm.
Spieth went on to birdie three of his next four holes. Nail met coffin on the par 3 11th, when he made such preposterous 47-foot putt that Stenson had no choice but to fire an are-you-kidding-me glance his way, followed by a congratulatory fist-bump.
“Today was just an exhibition on the greens,” Stenson said admiringly of the winner.
For his good work, Spieth was allowed the luxury of a walk down the par 3 18th in the company of a four-shot lead.
Justice and Spieth had triumphed. “Just tip your hat and the best player this week won the tournament, won the FedEx Cup,” Stenson said. He rightly could have expanded that to best player of the year.
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