2017 WGC Bridgestone Invitational: Round 1 - Bunker Shot on 9th

2017 PGA Championship

In Pursuit of History

Jordan Spieth knows all about pressure. He also knows about the history that awaits him at the PGA Championship.

Surprisingly, he doesn't think the two are connected.

Spieth understands what is at stake in the final major championship of the year. A victory would make the 24-year-old Texan only the sixth player — and the youngest by about six months over Tiger Woods — to capture the career Grand Slam.

And he has never felt more at ease.

Maybe that will change when Spieth gets to Quail Hollow Club for the 99th edition of the PGA Championship, and the conversation shifts from his British Open victory and that amazing finish at Royal Birkdale to the prospect of owning all four trophies from golf's biggest events.

"There's going to be a bunch of buildup and hype around it, and it's going to be said a lot," Spieth said. "But it's almost like if we don't win ... we're free-wheeling. I'm going to play to win. And if it doesn't go well, then so what?"

Woods was the most recent addition to golf's most elite group when he won the U.S. Open and British Open in a span of 35 days in 2000.

It took 13 years before anyone else even had the chance, and now there are three candidates. Phil Mickelson picked up the third leg of the career Grand Slam at the 2013 British Open, and Rory McIlroy joined him by winning the claret jug a year later. In both cases, they had to wait until the following year for their opportunity to get the last one — Mickelson at the U.S. Open, McIlroy at the Masters.

Spieth only has to wait three weeks, which is one reason he doesn't feel any anxiety.