Jordan Spieth sets his sights on making history

Post by Sports Writer, Derek Clements

WHO would have thought it? At the beginning of the 2015 golf season the burning question was: will Rory McIlroy win The Masters and complete the career Grand Slam? And when he has done that, how many other majors will he win before the year is out?

It didn't quite turn out like that though, did it? We all knew that Jordan Spieth was a special talent, but maybe we didn't quite realise just how special. Well, we do now.

He won his first PGA Tour title, the John Deere Classic, when he was just 19 years old. At the time, he wasn't even a full member of the PGA Tour, but that win secured his full Tour Card. And then he seemed to contend every single time he teed it up. Five weeks after his debut win, he tied with Patrick Reed after 72 holes in the Wyndham Championship, but lost in a playoff. There were a host of top 10 finishes and countless near misses but he struggled to land his second title, and the closer he came, the more difficult it seemed to be for him to finish the job.

Spieth will be hoping to add the Claret Jug to his trophy cabinet following wins in this years Masters & US Open

In 2014 he made his debut in The Masters, and finished second behind Bubba Watson. He also went on to make his debut in the Ryder Cup, where he performed superbly in a losing team at Gleneagles.

Then he took a trip down under and won the Australian Open by six shots before returning to the United States and winning Tiger Woods' Hero Challenge with a record 26-under-par total.

And now, it seems, Spieth can't stop winning.

This year he won the Valspar Championship in a playoff, holing a 30-feet putt on the third extra hole to defeat Reed and Sean O'Hair. He then finished second in the Texas Open before losing the Shell Houston Open in a playoff.

And then came The Masters. What a week, what a performance. Spieth broke the 36-hole (130) and 54-hole (200) scoring records. He tied Tiger Woods' 1997 72-hole scoring record too, winning the tournament with an 18-under-par total of 270. He was the first wire-to-wire winner since Ray Floyd, way back in 1976 and became the second youngest winner behind Woods. It saw him climb to number two in the world rankings.

Unbelievably, he also won the US Open at Chambers Bay with a five-under-par total of 275. The course attracted many adverse headlines but the interesting thing was that the cream rose to the top. Spieth won, with Dustin Johnson and Louis Oosthuizen tied for second. Rory McIlroy was up there too. And the most impressive thing of all was that the course could not have been more different from the immaculately-prepared Augusta National, but Spieth mastered it. Yes, people will always remember the fact that Johnson three-putted the final green from 12 feet to finish second, but here's the thing that all his rivals should be worried about: Spieth won the US Open while playing way below his best. His driving was poor (he missed too many fairways) and, by his standards, his putting was awful. And yet he still won.

So we have had two majors in 2015 and Spieth has won them both. Can he make it number three at the Old Course? Well yes, of course he can. This is a man who has played in The Masters twice and finished first and second. This is a man who was able to adapt to the very different conditions thrown up by Chambers Bay. He prepared the right way for the US Open and when he tees it up at St Andrews he will know exactly what is needed to win.

He has the game, he has the temperament and he has the short game to cope with anything and everything the Old Lady throws at him. One other thing that may be overlooked in the run-up to The Open is that Spieth was brought up in Texas, so he knows how to score in the wind.

If there is one thing that may hold him back it is that, at some point, it is bound to register with him that he is on the point of making history. Nobody has ever won all four majors in the same season - Woods held all four back in 2001, but it was spread over two seasons. And there is also the small matter of Rory McIlroy, the defending champion.

McIlroy has not enjoyed being upstaged by this young pup, who doesn't turn 22 until the week after The Open. And if ever a course was made for any golfer, then the Old Course is made for McIlroy - unless the winds blows for four days. There is also the small matter of his cruciate ligament injury - depending on how serious it turns out to be, McIlroy may not even be fit to play at St Andrews.

Johnson will also love the place, and is determined to put his Chambers Bay heartbreak behind him.

Can Spieth do it? Of course he can? Will he do it? No. But he will give the record books one heck of a fright.

HOW DID THE OTHERS FARE?

JORDAN SPIETH is the sixth golfer to win the first two majors in a season. The others are Tiger Woods, Jack Nicklaus, Ben Hogan, Arnold Palmer and Craig Wood.

Hogan did it twice, in 1951 and 1953. In 1953 he crossed the Atlantic and added The Open. Back in those days, it was impossible to play in both The Open and the US PGA championship.

Wood won the Masters and US Open in 1941. There was no Open Championship because of the Second World War, and Wood never won another major.

Palmer won the The Masters and US Open in 1960 and came to St Andrews in the form of his life. He came close, very close, finishing second behind Kel Nagle, of Australia, and then tied for seventh at the US PGA championship.

Nicklaus won The Masters and US Open in 1972. Like Palmer before him, the Golden Bear came within a whisker of making it three out of three when he finished second behind Lee Trevino at The Open.

And Woods did it in 2002, before finishing 28th at The Open. But he is the only golfer ever to have all four majors at the same time. In 2000, he won the US Open, The Open and the US PGA championship before adding The Masters in 2001.

Image credit - Jordan Spieth Facebook