Well before Jordan Spieth was fitted for a Masters green jacket in April, he acquired a nickname from a few PGA Tour players, who took one look at his pinchable face, impeccable manners and bulletproof game and anointed him the Golden Child.
His other peer group, consisting of friends he grew up with in Dallas, gave him a different nickname. Taking note that he left the University of Texas midway through his sophomore year to try his luck as a professional golfer, his childhood clique took to calling him the College Dropout.
Spieth loved that one. Flattery will get you nowhere with Spieth, who values facetiousness. The common thread running through his hodgepodge of an entourage is the needle, liberally applied to prick Spieth’s ego. His inner circle includes a former sixth-grade teacher, his ninth-grade science lab partner, a onetime high school basketball team manager, a junior golf nemesis from Kentucky and his sister, who has special needs.When they take aim, nothing is out of bounds: his receding hairline; a PGA Tour commercial in which he loses to a fan in checkers; a failed driver’s test.
“Having a sense of humor about things on and off the course helps keep things in perspective,” said Spieth’s caddie, Michael Greller, a former teacher who worked at a school roughly two miles from Chambers Bay, site of this week’s United States Open. “All the people around Jordan let him have it. He certainly lets us have it.”
Spieth is not afraid to poke fun at himself in public, as he did in his victory speech at the Masters when he referred to his hairline. His fearless, aggressive play on the course and his modest, muted style off it have turned him into golf’s flavor of the month — not vanilla, but not rocky road, either. More like cinnamon spice.