So, how’s your dry, dieting, disciplined January going? Probably better than mine. This correspondent has colleagues, cohorts and compadres who smoke between mouthfuls let alone courses during a meal and have so much booze in their system that a routine blood test appears with a head on it, yet somehow they have managed to negotiate the first perilous fortnight of the new year without resorting to those tried and trusted vices. As for myself? Well, I tend to swiftly plummet off the wagon with the kind of shuddering dunt that would’ve had Icarus peering on and wincing the words, ‘crikey, that looked a sair yin.’
Why change your habits eh? Jordan Spieth certainly hasn’t. His eight shot romp in the Hyundai Tournament of Champions in Hawaii with a formidable 30-under tally was the perfect way to usher in 2016 and the perfect response to all of those fevered onlookers who have been asking what he’ll do to follow up his shimmering 2015. Since winning the Valspar Championship last March, Spieth has embarked on the kind of purposeful, profitable run that would’ve made Gebrselassie look like some wheezing clumper forlornly trying to jog off the festive excess. Five wins, including those majestic major moments in the Masters and the US Open, have followed and Spieth, at 22, has become the third youngest player, after Tiger Woods in 1998 and Horton Smith in 1929, to reach seven PGA Tour victories.
Comparisons with the career of 14-time major winner Woods are, inevitably, unrelenting but why not savour the moment and enjoy watching Spieth writing his own success story instead of obsessing about him re-writing Tiger’s tale? “I just think it (the comparison) is premature,” noted Spieth with a sense of calm reason that is often missing in a rapid fire era of anointments and coronations. “It would be hard to believe I could be compared to him the entire course of a career.”
The expectation levels continue to rise and the pressure gets cranked up with each passing week. Spieth could probably poach Len Goodman from the Beeb and commission a series of ‘Strictly Come Golfing’ on the basis that he’s always being judged. That remorseless scrutiny is part and parcel of being the No 1 player in the world, of course, but Spieth continues to deal with the myriad burdens superbly. In these times of bluster, hysteria and knee-jerk reaction when everybody assumes they are an expert and the platforms for endless comment, criticism, opinion and analysis know no bounds, just about the only person who is not working themselves into a furious fankle is Spieth himself. His own lofty expectations are the only expectations that matter, after all.
“I have as high expectations as anybody else,” he said. “So, if I'm not reaching my own, I'm going to be upset with myself. I'm not going to let other people's expectations take the best of me. People just want to say stuff just to say stuff. Everything's in the spotlight, everything's going to be judged.”
Spieth remains his own man and from the moment he turned professional he has had that sturdy sense of single-mindedness that separates the best from the rest. His bold decision to quit college halfway through a four-year programme and take the pro plunge without a tour to play on at the time demonstrated courage but also unwavering confidence in his own abilities. He was willing to take that risk on himself and in this game where players gamble on themselves on a weekly basis, Spieth continues to come up with the aces.
Interestingly, last weekend’s winner on the European Tour was another 22-year-old, Brandon Stone, who won the BMW South African Open in his home country as he secured his maiden triumph at the top table.
Highly-rated in the unpaid ranks, Stone, who was beaten by Fifer Brian Soutar in the final of the South African Amateur Championship back in 2012, went to the same University of Texas as Spieth and, like him, he also opted to come out of the scholarship after just one year to pursue his professional ambitions. While Spieth hit the ground running and earned his PGA Tour privileges through a series of sparkling showings in the tournament invitations he was handed, Stone has followed a more orthodox path and managed to earn promotion to the main European circuit through last year’s Challenge Tour rankings.
They continue to operate in different stratospheres, of course, but the parallels in their careers are intriguing. There is no ‘one size fits all’ procedure when it comes to making it in this very individual and fickle pursuit. The number of ways to be successful are considerable and the number of ways to fail even more so. Spieth and Stone both made big decisions that they felt was right for them at the time. Those decisions have been fully vindicated.
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