THE smiles never disappeared as he moved to congratulate the victor but Matt Kuchar was hurting on the inside. Leading a remarkable Open championship at Royal Birkdale with just five holes to play, the likeable American with the most even of temperaments must have started to wonder if his long major drought was finally about to come to an end.
That it ultimately didn’t, however, came down more to Jordan Spieth’s extraordinary rebound from adversity than any failings on his own part. As he watched Spieth recover from a staggering 13th hole – where he was forced into a desperate thrash from a spot somewhere near Liverpool following a wayward tee shot - to record birdie, eagle, birdie, and birdie again over his next four holes, Kuchar probably already knew deep down that it was not going to be his day.
Two birdies on 15 and 17 ultimately weren’t enough to chase down Spieth who would go on to land the third part of a career grand slam by three shots. Kuchar’s runner-up spot is still his highest-ever finish in a major but one suspects there may be a dull ache residing within the 39 year-old for some time that it could have been better still. Not even the surprise of his family having arrived from their home in Colorado to greet him could soften the blow.
“Crushing,” was how he summed up his overriding feeling in the immediate aftermath of the duel so narrowly lost. “It hurts. But it’s also an excitement and a thrill to have played well, to have put up a battle and put up a fight.
“You work so hard to get to this position, to have a chance to make history and win a championship. You don’t get that many opportunities. And to be this close, to taste it with five holes to go, it’s a hard one to sit back and take.
“I can only control what I do, how I play. Jordan is a great champion and certainly played that way in the finishing stretch today. It was impressive stuff when a guy does something like that. All you can really do is sit back, tip your cap and say, ‘well done’. And it was certainly a show that he put on.”
He will surely come to play out the 13th over and over in his head, the long, agonising wait he was forced to endure while Spieth scrambled over hill and dune for what seemed like an eternity before scrambling to make bogey. Kuchar’s par gave him a one-shot lead but the real drama was still to unfold.
“We knew we were going to be there for a while so we made ourselves comfy and told some stories,” he revealed. “Certainly it was not anything I was ever going to be upset with. It’s very understanding. It’s a very difficult situation [for Spieth]. Once we started playing again, I had a great shot at birdie and nearly thought my putt was going in. So I didn’t lose any momentum. All of a sudden I now have a one-shot lead in the Open with five holes to go. I’m playing really well, hitting a lot of good shots. I think I’m going to keep doing what I’m doing. And he just… he really turned it up.”
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