Even the best putters go through stretches where the hole looks small. Jordan Spieth admitted to feeling that way on Saturday. But winners know how to win, and on Sunday along the marshy shore of Calibogue Sound Spieth proved that he still knows how to find a way to close and collect the trophy, Tartan jacket and the seven-figure check that came with it (and pushed his career earnings over $50 million).
“I won this golf tournament without a putter,” he said.
Despite his putter woes, Spieth sank the putt when it mattered most. In the shadow of a 90-foot-high, candy cane-striped lighthouse rising behind the 18th green, Spieth nailed a 10-foot birdie putt at the final hole to shoot 5-under 66 at Harbour Town Golf Links on Hilton Head Island, South Carolina.
That was enough to overcome an embarrassing miss from 18 inches the day before, finish at 13-under 271 and return to 18 and make a par at the first playoff hole to defeat Patrick Cantlay and win the PGA Tour’s RBC Heritage.
Spieth, 28, earned his 13th PGA Tour title and first as a father. When Cantlay’s 35-foot putt to extend the playoff sailed by, Spieth’s wife Annie rushed on the green with son Sammy in tow to celebrate as a family.
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It was an unlikely win after Spieth struggled with the short stick on Saturday, making just 29 total feet of putts in the third round and nothing longer than 3 feet. To make matters worse, he missed that tap-in par putt at the last and entered the final round trailing by three strokes.
“I was about as upset after the round yesterday as I’ve ever been in a golf tournament. There’s just no excuse for those kind of brain farts as a professional to myself, but also to Michael, who’s working his butt off, to go out there and do that that could potentially affect the outcome of a tournament,” he said.
It was shades of a similar miscue to end the third round of last year’s British Open, where he finished second to Collin Morikawa. This one lingered in his head, too, and he attributed a tip from his wife of all people, who he said never comments on his golf, for helping him in crunch time.
“You need to take five seconds,” she told her husband, before knocking in any tap-in putts.
“There was a couple times I was just going to rake it, and I was like, no, I’ve got to take five seconds,” Spieth recalled.
He was still smarting over the wasted shot in the morning, but he resolved to make up for it and did so quickly by making eagles at two of the first five holes. First, he holed a bunker shot at the par-5 second and then followed by draining a curling 24-foot putt at the fifth. His putting mantra for the final round appeared to be working. “I’m not going to leave one putt short. And if they miss, they miss, and just try to be a little bit more aggressive,” he said.
