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Spieth laps world class field to record back to back wins

By: Golf Shake | Mon 08 Dec 2014


Post by Golf Writer, Derek Clements

IT WAS supposed to be all about the comeback of Tiger Woods. And that's exactly how the Hero World Challenge turned out. Apart from the fact that the comeback we were talking about was not the sensational one we had hoped for and expected to witness at Isleworth, Florida.

The world looked on in disbelief as he staggered to a first round of 77 that included FOUR duffed pitches - count them - and left the great man in a foul mood. In an invited field of 18, he was dead last, and his sole task for the remaining 54 holes was to ensure he didn't finish that way.

There were signs of recovery in round two, when he managed a 70. But, all around him, younger rivals were ripping the course to shreds. This is a layout around which Woods once took 58 shots.

He went round in 69 in round three, but the 38-year-old was feeling unwell. He had lost his voice overnight and was taking antobiotics to combat feelings of nausea. And he would have felt little better when told that Jordan Spieth had negotiated the course in 63. He was on 196, 20 under par, and 20 shots clear of Woods, who was still last and the only man in the field who wasn't under par. Spieth was also seven shots ahead of his nearest challenger.

For Spieth, it was a second 63 in six days - he shot the same score in the final round to win the Australian Open. And it wasn't long before he was off and running again in the final round.

But long before Spieth had finished, Woods was already back in the clubhouse, a 72 giving him a four-round total of 288, level par - he finished tied for last place thanks to Hunter Mahan closing out with a 75.

Tiger's last round was a microcosm of everything that had gone before. He reached the turn in two under, with seven pars and two birdies, but the par-five 13th turned out to be unlucky for him - and how. He took eight shots to complete the hole, and then dropped another at the next. Woods being Woods, he managed to finish with his head held high thanks to birdies at the 16th and 17th, but this wasn't the comeback he had in mind.

What he would give for even a fraction of the magic Spieth possesses right now. The 21-year-old is playing fantasy golf.
He birdied three of the first four holes and then eagled the seventh to reach the turn in 31. He was five under for the round and an astonishing 25 under for the tournament. And he immediately improved upon that with a birdie at the 10th.

Incredibly, he was 12 shots clear of Keegan Bradley and Patrick Reed, 13 ahead of Jason Day and Henrik Stenson. In fact, remove him from the equation and we had quite a decent tournament going on. Spieth wasn't so much winning it as lapping the entire field. Stenson managed to reduce the deficit to a mere 11 strokes with birdies at the 12th and 13th, and when Spieth double-bogeyed the 14th he was "only" nine in front.

The American immediately birdied the par-three 15th and with Stenson doing the same at the 16th, the gap remained at nine. He increased it to 10 with a birdie at the 17th. A par at the last gave him a 72-hole total of 26 under par - it doesn't get much better than 66, 67, 63 and 66. Stenson finished second.

Spieth hadn't won for 18 months and, suddenly, he achieves two on the bounce. There has always been a feeling with Spieth that the moment he claimed his second title he would be unstoppable. For the moment at least, he is unstoppable.

Image credit - Golf Channel Twitter


Derek Clements is a sports journalist with a particular passion for golf with over 12 years of experience covering golf and other sports including Chief Sub-Editor on the sports desk of The Sunday Times. To contact Derek email direct via [email protected]


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