Emergency 9: RBC Heritage, Round 3

ATLANTA – Jordan Spieth could finish as low as 29th at this week’s TOUR Championship at East Lake and still have a mathematical chance of winning the FedExCup. Should he finish in the top 5 here, he would have what the number-crunchers call “a reasonable chance� of winning it all. And if he wins the tournament, well, you know. In a sense, though, he has already won. We are near the end of a season in which FedExCup No. 1 Spieth has further established himself as the one plus ultra of TOUR pros. He is the only player here who has won the TOUR Championship, the only one who has won the FedExCup, and the only one with more than one major title to his name (Spieth has three). He leads the vaunted high school Class of 2011—Justin Thomas, Daniel Berger, etc.—with 11 PGA TOUR wins, and it isn’t even close. “Until any of us has more accomplishments than him, he has the right and the full respect of all of us to be the [measuring stick] and leader of our class,� Justin Thomas said Tuesday. Granted, Thomas has been catching up, racking up five wins, including one major this season, compared to Spieth’s three wins with one major. And Dustin Johnson, 33, has more career wins on TOUR (16) than either of them. He is also No. 1 in the Official World Golf Ranking. But talk to players about the pecking order at East Lake—and this week it’s all about pecking order—and it is clear which player stands at the front of the line. Spieth. It’s not just that he has enjoyed two of the six best putting weeks of his young career at this 7,385-yard, par-70, when he tied for second in 2013 and won in 2015. (He loves the Bermuda greens.) And it’s not just he thrives on hilly courses and uneven lies, which favor a more feel-based approach—“similar to Augusta,� Spieth said—rather than strict adherence to swing mechanics. It’s also that Spieth has quickly built up around him a culture of winning. “The first time I met him was probably the U.S. Junior,� said Berger, who fell victim to perhaps the Shot of the Year at the Travelers Championship at TPC River Highlands, where Spieth holed out from the bunker in a playoff to win. “But I probably didn’t get to know him well until college.� (Berger went to Florida State; Spieth attended Texas.) “He was always kind of the best one.� Berger laughed. “And it’s still that way today.� Spieth got to East Lake on Monday to start work with his coach, Cameron McCormick, with whom he also powwowed with before The Open Championship at Royal Birkdale (worked out nicely.) As if Spieth’s robust 2017 season and course familiarity weren’t daunting enough, he is one of just three players, with Jon Rahm and Justin Rose, to record top-10 finishes in all three FedExCup Playoffs events. Oh, and he’s also coming off a final-round 65 at the BMW Championship. “Yeah, I was pumped to have the round I had on Sunday, a couple days ago,� Spieth said at his press conference here Tuesday. “Gained some momentum to maintain the No. 1 spot. … I felt like I got a little bit closer. I was a little off to start the week, in my striking, and I started to kind of get back to the way I was—I feel pretty close to the way I was hitting it the first two Playoffs events, and trying to dial in the putter and the short game as well.� Spieth’s Playoffs run so far (2nd, 2nd, tied for 7th) has been remarkably consistent, and of a piece with his prolific and steady career. Rose, 37, says he saw something different in Spieth after he shot a final-round 72 to tie for second at the 2014 Masters—at age 20. “I just remember how mad he was with himself,� Rose said from East Lake. “There was nothing about a moral victory, or lessons learned, or about how he had plenty of time. He was so competitive, he felt he really should’ve won, and that’s when I thought: Okay, this guy’s a little different. I mean, listen, holing out from the trap at the John Deere [Classic in 2013]. Those moments have accelerated his rise to the top. If you do it once, it could be a lucky shot, but he’s continually done that. We saw it at the Travelers Championship just this year. “He’s really reestablished himself as that great player,� Rose continued. “I mean, there’s a lot of great players out here, but like that great-great player, like Tiger Woods-great player. I think, obviously, The Open Championship was an amazing victory and an amazing watch for us seasoned pros, even. You saw someone struggling and then just flip the switch. It was cool.� It was at The Open that Spieth shot a front-nine 37, lost the lead to playing partner Matt Kuchar with a zany bogey at the 13th hole, and went 5-under the rest of the way to win. “I thought his win at the British was his best by far,� Thomas said. “I mean, the start that he got off to was just awful. For him to stay in it, to come back, to persevere though that, especially when (Kuchar) was breathing down his neck, was unbelievable.� What has Thomas tried to learn from Spieth? Perseverance. What could Spieth learn from Thomas? That one’s harder to answer. “He’s got it covered pretty well,� Thomas said. “The only thing I really have on him is I hit it farther than him; other than that, he probably wouldn’t trade any part of his game for mine.� Most impressive of all might be Spieth’s golfing mind. He methodically dissects his rounds as he’s playing them, and sometimes goes even deeper after the fact. “He’s very aware of what’s going on out on the course with regards to his emotions and his feelings and his focus,� Rose said. “He doesn’t shy away from it. He calls himself out on it.� He also studies the physical aspects of the game, and spoke Tuesday of balancing his work with McCormick with having “a very boring week off the golf course� to save energy for when he’s “into the thick of things here on the weekend, and it takes a lot out of you.� Spieth will tee off at 2 p.m. ET Thursday, alongside Thomas. They have eight victories, including two majors, between them this season. But only Spieth knows what it takes to win the TOUR Championship and the FedExCup, and how to ignore the feeling of someone pumping a ball-washer in your larynx as you contemplate the $11.4 million bonanza for winning both. There’s nothing boring about that.

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FORT WORTH, Texas – One name stood out to Justin Rose when he hoisted the 4-foot-tall Leonard Trophy that’s awarded to the winner of the Fort Worth Invitational. “I saw Ben Hogan’s name twice,� Rose said. “It sort of says a lot. … I’m proud to be a part of that.� Hogan’s presence is still strong at Colonial, more than two decades after his passing. A 7-foot statue of the man many consider the greatest ballstriker of all time still overlooks the course. He would’ve been proud of Rose’s performance this week. Rose won in truly Hogan-esque fashion, exhibiting exquisite ball control throughout the week. He hit 57 greens, including 30 of his first 33, to lead the field in that statistic. He also led in Strokes Gained: Approach-the-Green (+10.24) and was second in proximity to the hole (25 feet, 2 inches). He had a birdie putt of 20 feet or shorter on 45 of the 72 holes (62.5 percent). Rose called it one of the best ballstriking performances of his career. He beat Brooks Koepka by three shots after shooting 20-under 260 (66-64-66-64), one off the tournament record. Rose’s bogey on the last hole, when the tournament was already in hand, was just his fifth of the week. “The way I won I think is very fitting for a place that’s called Hogan’s Alley,� Rose said. “I couldn’t have dreamt a better way really. “If I begin to look at the courses I’ve won at, this definitely strengthens that group even more. I’m very happy my game has turned up and I’ve been inspired by some of these great venues.� Rose has shown a knack for playing well on historic venues. He’s also won at Merion, Aronimink, Muirfield Village, Congressional, Royal Aberdeen and Valderrama. And he was the game’s first Olympic gold medalist in more than a century. Now he’s in good position to succeed at another course with strong ties to one of the game’s legends, Bobby Jones. Rose is second in the FedExCup after becoming the fifth player to win twice this season. “When you’re in that rarified air in the FedExCup, you start to think about positioning yourself in the Top 5 for East Lake,� Rose said. “We all know that’s a big, big deal. It’s a golf course I have played well at in the past.� Few courses on TOUR can match Colonial’s legacy, though. The Fort Worth Invitational, which dates back to 1946, is the longest-running PGA TOUR event played on the same course. It’s the 10th-oldest event on TOUR, too. Hogan won the first two TOUR events held at the course Marvin Leonard created to bring slicker bentgrass greens to an area dominated by Bermudagrass putting surfaces. Hogan also went back-to-back in 1952 and ’53, the latter victory coming in the midst of his historic Triple Crown season. The last of his 64 PGA TOUR victories came at Colonial. Of the handful of courses that are known as “Hogan’s Alley,� none may be more deserving than Colonial. Leonard met Hogan while Hogan was caddying across town at Glen Garden Golf Club. He became a mentor and a friend to the teenager who’d lost his father at a young age. Leonard helped Hogan get his playing career and equipment company off the ground. Colonial still honors him today with the Hogan Room, a small museum inside the clubhouse, and a re-creation of his office. Among the items in the Hogan Room is a red wicker basket, one of the trademark flagsticks from Merion Golf Club in Ardmore, Pennsylvania. It’s a course where both Hogan and Rose won the U.S. Open. Hogan won the 1950 U.S. Open less than 18 months after surviving a head-on collision with a Greyhound bus. His victory produced one of the game’s iconic images: Hy Peskin’s photograph of Hogan hitting a 1-iron into Merion’s 18th green. Rose won at Merion five years ago; his caddie, Mark Fulcher, has the red basket in his office. Fulcher said he was watching “a master of his trade in control� at Colonial. Rose’s win at Colonial linked with another World Golf Hall of Famer. The Fort Worth Invitational was Rose’s ninth on the PGA TOUR, matching Nick Faldo for the most by an Englishman. Rose’s consistent ball-striking reminded Faldo of his own precise iron play that led to six major championships. “You have so many stats in this game, but the real bottom line is proximity to the hole,� Faldo said. “That’s the ultimate goal for everybody. We’re trying to hit great shots as consistently as we can. “Justin works hard on the science of the game to give him a feel he can trust because the numbers stack up. That was my style, as well.� In the days leading up to Colonial, the swing changes that Rose and longtime instructor Sean Foley have been working on for the past year started to click. Rose ended last year with 10 consecutive top-10s and had three more in his first five starts of 2018. He struggled at the Houston Open and in the first three rounds of THE PLAYERS, though. Then he shot a final-round 66 at TPC Sawgrass, which included seven birdies in an eight-hole stretch. A week of practice with Foley in Orlando further engrained the changes. Rose, 37, moved to No. 3 in the Official World Golf Ranking after his 20th worldwide win. The average age of the other players in the top 10? Twenty-seven years old. Rose is the oldest in the top 10 by four years. Foley credits a tenacity that Hogan, who was known as “The Hawk� and the “Wee Ice Mon� because of his steely nature, would admire. Rose and Foley were among the early adopters of TrackMan, sometimes drawing criticism for their analytical approach. Rose is still looking for new ways to improve, even as he nears 40 in what is rapidly becoming a young man’s game. “From how he eats, to how he trains, to how he breaks down a golf course, he has a very thoughtful approach to maximizing his probability for success,� Foley said. “Sometimes people are afraid to change what they do or how they do it. His lack of satisfaction in what he’s doing has really pushed us to look under every rock.� Embracing the future has helped him succeed on golf’s historic grounds.

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The drama between the PGA Tour and LIV Golf will take a brief break over four days as players vie for the U.S. Open title. So who has a chance?

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