Bizarre Ending Results in Jordan Spieth Winning U.S. Open
- Dan Hauser
- 22 Jun, 2015
Jordan Spieth stood in the scoring trailer late on Sunday and watched and waited. He waited to see if his 5-under par round would be good enough. He waited to see if his blunder on the 71st hole would cost him.
As he watched Dustin Johnson walk up the 18th fairway with an upcoming eagle putt to win the U.S. Open he could to help but feel helpless.
“Yeah, I didn’t enjoy not being able to control it,” Spieth admitted. “It was tough watching him.”
Then as Johnson lined up his 13 foot eagle putt, another thought crept into the 21 year olds mind.
“What did I do?” he finally asked his caddie, Michael Greller. “How did I possibly let this happen?”
What happened next might have been one of the strangest endings to a golf tournament that golf fans have seen.
Johnson missed his eagle putt, sending it about three feet past the hole. Now he looked at a short birdie putt that would have sent he and Spieth to a Monday 18 hole playoff. That putt lipped out as well and next thing anyone knew Jordan Spieth had won consecutive majors.
“I’m disappointed that I three-putted the last hole,” said Johnson, who closed with an even-par 70. “Other than that I had a damn good week. I’m happy with the way I played. I’m happy with everything in my game right now. I had a chance to win again at a major on a Sunday.”
Back to Spieth for a minute. He now finds himself in rarefied air, joining the likes of a Tiger, Jack, And Arnold as the only golfers to win the first two majors of the golf season. In fact, it has only happened 6 times in the history of the game. It all almost went away in one swing.
He came to the 17th hole with what seemed at the time like an insurmountable 3 stroke lead over Johnson and the rest of the field. Then he hit his 6 iron so far right off the tee and he thought it was out of bounds. He could only manage a double bogey after that and all of a sudden his 3 shot lead was gone.
“It would have definitely stung,” Spieth said. “It would have stung a lot because it was mine. I controlled my destiny. It would have been tough to swallow.”
In the end though, it was Johnson, not Spieth, that suffered the blow on the 18th green one day shy of his 31st birthday.
“I very much feel for him. He’s a great champion. He’s certainly proven that he closes tournaments out. That was just an odd deal, very odd.”
Johnson finished in a tie for second at 4-under with Old Palm resident Louis Oosthuizen who, after an opening 77 playing with Tiger Woods on Thursday went 66-66-67 over the next 3 days to get into contention.
Today though, all eyes are on Spieth as he finds himself one step closer to to history and the grand slam. He will head to St Andrews once again as the favorite.
Spieth summed it up best last night when asked about the possibility of winning all four in the same year.
“Can’t win ’em all unless you win the first two,” he said.
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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.
