Jordan Spieth Cruises To Tournament Of Champions Title
- Dan Hauser
- 11 Jan, 2016
The calendar might say 2016, but the leaderboard on Sunday screamed 2015 with Jordan Spieth cruising to yet another win at the 2016 calendar year starting Hyundai Tournament of Champions.
Spieth played the same dominating golf that we grew accustomed to in 2015 in his eight shot win over defending champion Patrick Reed.
”I felt like it was short three-week break and continue what we were doing last year,” said Spieth, coming off a five-win season that included the Masters and U.S. Open. ”That’s the way I’ll keep on thinking about it. It worked this week. All parts were firing.”
Spieth dominated the winners only field at Kapalua shooting rounds of 66, 64, 65, and 67 to finish the week at a staggering 30-under par. Ernie Els four day total of 31-under par was the only score better than Spite’s in the tournament’s history.
If you listened to Spieth talk before he started his season, he made it clear his goal was for 2016 to be a mere continuation, and not an encore.
The Tuesday before the tournament at his press conference, Spieth was asked by Doug Ferguson of the associated press what his plan was for an encore. Spieth made it clear that just because the calendar year changed, didn’t mean anything was going to change with him or his game.
“Doesn’t an encore mean that the show is then over?” Spieth said. “I’m not thinking of this as anything different,” he said. “The month changed, the year changed. When you write the date, that’s about it in my mind. I think we’ve just had a little bit of a break, and I’ve had plenty of playing and practice to be plenty ready to try and win this week and then take our game over to Asia in a couple weeks, then I’ll come back here and get to my normal schedule.”
Spieth backed that up and then some this week in Hawaii, just ask some of his playing competitors. Brooks Koepka shot a 63 on Saturday. That was one off the course record and good enough to get him in the final pairing Sunday with Spieth and yet he still started the day five shots back. At one point Sunday Reed got to within three shots of Spieth. That was the closest he would ever get, eventually settling for his runner up finish eight shots back.
”I knew I had to make birdies early to put pressure on him,” Reed said. ”I got it to within three. The next time I saw a board it was back to five. He’s not going to shoot over par, especially the way he’s playing now.”
The win was Spieth’s seventh PGA Tour win, putting him onto a list with some very elite company. Spieth joins Tiger Woods as the only golfers to have seven Tour wins by the age of 22. That is pretty much where the comparisons between the two end. Spieth got his seventh win in his 77th start. By the time Tiger had played 77 events, he had already won 18 of them.
Spieth knows that it’s way to early to start the Tiger comparisons, but you can’t argue that Spieth is playing some truly inspiring golf for people to even be talking about it.
”I don’t think there’s any reason to compare,” Spieth said. “It’s awfully early. We’re excited about where we’re at to start our career. What Tiger has done, I can’t imagine ever being done. But it’s nice to be in that company. It’s fantastic being out here with what we’re trying to do, and doing it well.”
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About Dan Hauser
As an avid golfer and sports enthusiast, Dan has had a passion for sports starting at a very young age. Dan’s other passion has always been writing. Since the time he could write, he has always enjoyed sharing information with people and telling stories through writing. In middle school he combined his two loves by joining the school newspaper in the sports department.
