Washington, DC — It's been an underwhelming season on the PGA Tour, but that was all supposed to change on Thursday at 8:12 a.m. ET when Tiger Woods returned alongside Jason Day and Jordan Spieth. It was the power group led by the biggest star and moneymaker the game has ever seen, coming back from a three-month hiatus at his own tournament. It jolted a sport that had sleepily trudged through the past three months and first two majors and it came suddenly -- sooner than expected. But by the weekend, all that remained from that marquee group at Congressional was Spieth, the 20-year-old who rocketed into widespread national prominence while Woods was away.
With Tiger unable to make the cut, the top draw for much of the weekend was Spieth, who was never even in it over his final 36 holes of the Quicken Loans National. But even with his tee time hours before the final pairings, the crowds still lined the ropes to see one of America's best young players. On Sunday, when he was a little closer to the lead, the gallery following him created traffic jams, and lined the ropes three and four rows deep at certain spots as he came down the back nine.
Spieth still seems to be adjusting to these crowds. The first two days, of course, they were all there to see Tiger and nothing matches a Tiger Woods gallery. Spieth handled the Thursday morning crowd well enough, but there were multiple instances over the final three rounds when he had to back off his ball. At the 9th hole on Friday, he yanked a relatively benign layup shot into the left rough. His caddie, Michael Greller, instantly waved over and pointed at the gallery down the right fairway, and Spieth gave a glance to the crowd before returning to his ball that was diving badly left. At the 18th on Saturday, he backed off again. That's one of the more intimidating approach shots on Tour, into a peninsula green surrounded by water. And the wind had changed significantly for the third round, but the backoff was more than uncertainty about club choice as Greller was again trying to signal to the crowd to calm and hush. Spieth had to back off his ball again on Sunday in a greenside sand trap at the 17th. The green was surrounded on all sides by hospitality suites and grandstands, and someone on the perch leaning over and hovering about 15 feet above his stance in the bunker had caused a disruption as he was about to blast out.