Another day, another carefree stroll through the Masters garden for Jordan Spieth.
He does not whistle while he walks down these emerald fairways. He does not chase butterflies between shots, nor in mid-round pull out a cane pole and fish for bream in Rae’s Creek. But Spieth could, mind you, for such is his comfort level here on what is meant to be one of golf’s most cratered emotional battlegrounds.
What Spieth really did do Thursday was to confess to the peace that comes over him whenever he feels these wavy greens beneath his feet.
Coming up 18, he and U.S. Amateur champion Bryson DeChambeau were exchanging compliments when, as the “kid” (only two months younger than the two-time major champion) later recalled: “He’s saying, ‘I don’t know what it is about this place, I just love putting here.’”
Send the headline writers home for the week. We don’t need them here, we’ll just recycle the one from a year ago. The one that beat the same drum day after day: Spieth leads Masters.
His first-round 66 put him a couple of shots up on the field. That’s precisely where we left the defending champion in 2015, atop the leaderboard following every round.
Will he ever trail in a Masters again in this decade? How many Olympics and election cycles will pass before we know someone different in charge around here?
Yet to be discovered is the event that can unsettle Spieth once he passes through the guard gate on Washington Road. The driver that he cracked in practice Wednesday could have been difficult, like a falling out with a good friend. He just reloaded and made the best of it.
And even if he didn’t always use the long clubs in his bag to perfection Thursday — Spieth ranked 71st in the field in fairways hit (8 of 14) — he did his trademark surgery with the little stick. Oh, here’s a surprise — no one Thursday took fewer than Spieth’s 25 putts.
Sometimes numbers can amaze.
Only because he was born so late, the 22-year-old Spieth has but two previous Masters appearances. He backed up his runner-up finish in 2014 and 2015’s championship with Thursday’s good work. That’s nine rounds total, none of them over par. For those first nine rounds at Augusta National he is a cumulative 29 under par.
Look back on some others who have been the rulers of Augusta National, the very faces of the Masters, and their humble beginnings. At a comparative age, if not older than Spieth, they all had the decency to at least pay some dues to the old course.
For his first nine rounds, Tiger Woods was a cumulative 4 under par.
Jack Nicklaus was 10 over par.
Arnold Palmer 19 over. Gary Player 18 over.
And not only does Spieth have his own considerable talents to rely upon, he may also draw upon the energy of 30,000 or so of his friends outside the ropes. His personality and that of the Augusta National consumer seem very much in sync. Quite early in his professional golfing life Spieth has developed a considerable home-course advantage.
He spoke on that after Thursday’s round, about a scene on Amen Corner on Thursday. As he made the walk from the 11th green to the tee of the par-3 12th — it’s a walk from one of the more remote areas of the course back toward one of the more popular spectator overlooks — the people up front in their seats all stood and cheered Spieth loudly.
“It was one of the coolest moments I’ve ever had here,” Spieth said.
“Just to see everyone start to rise — it was really, really cool to kind of feel like you belong as the Masters champion,” he said. “Just that the gallery recognizes that you have won here and that this is a special place to you — that’s kind of what it felt like to me.”
The trick after that is to re-focus. Never an issue with Spieth. “I thought it was an awesome moment. And then I turned around and saw flipping winds into this tiny green. So that moment was short-lived,” he said through a smile.
Coming into the tournament, certain queries arose considering the state of his game, given that he had gone nearly three months without bench-pressing a grotesquely oversized trophy.
Spieth was not entirely certain how to respond. “The toughest part is how to answer why you’re not finishing first every time,” he said. “We’re fine. Everything’s been good.”
But there are no hard questions by the time April brings him to Augusta National. Only softballs and tributes, unicorns and rainbows.
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