Jordan Spieth spent 2 1/2 hours off the Bahamian coast last week fighting what turned out to be 300-pound shark.
“A couple of my friends were like, ‘I’ll take over,”’ he recalled on Tuesday afternoon. The relentless competitor in Spieth wasn’t having that. “I’m like, ‘You can bet your rear end you’re not taking over. This is my fish.’”
So to anyone who thinks Spieth – who could join Ben Hogan as the only golfers to win the first three legs of the modern Grand Slam next week at St. Andrews – is playing the John Deere Classic only out of a sense of loyalty to the home of his first PGA TOUR victory …
“I’m focusing on trying to get another one of these,” he said while stroking the leaping deer trophy the winner here will walk away with on Sunday. “I have one of these at my house and there is certainly room for another.”
Spieth’s decision to honor a months-old commitment to the Deere has been the subject of some debate across the golfing globe in the two weeks since he won the U.S. Open.
Even Zach Johnson, a player’s rep on the JDC Board of Directors, said he would not have blinked had Spieth made a last-minute decision to bypass both the Deere and a fundraiser Johnson hosted Monday in his nearby hometown of Cedar Rapids, Iowa.
“He stuck with his commitments, which is very honorable,” said Johnson, who lost a chance at a second straight win at his hometown tournament in a three-man, five-hole sudden playoff to Spieth two years ago at TPC Deere Run. “At the same time, there have only been so many guys in so many odd years who have won the first two majors and there is a lot of pressure on him. I applaud him.”
The second-ranked golfer in the world at the tender age of 21, Spieth is growing accustomed to applause, but he would advise Johnson and everyone else to hold their applause until the close of business Sunday at TPC Deere Run. And the following Sunday at St. Andrews as well.
“I don’t think I’m here strictly because I’m honoring a commitment,” he said. “If I thought I wasn’t going to play well next week because I played here, it would be a different story. I probably wouldn’t be here.
“I think that this is good preparation for me to get good feels, to get in contention. I’m here because I think I can win this week. I believe that it is advantageous for me to try and win this week and to get any kind of momentum I can going into the Open Championship.”
History might argue otherwise. Since 2008, when the Deere began offering a charter flight to the Open Championship, only five players have stepped off that plane and posted a top 10 in golf’s oldest event.
Johnson has two of those, a share of sixth following his playoff lost to Spieth in 2013 and a share of ninth after his JDC win in 2012. Only one player, Todd Hamilton in 2004, has won The Open after playing at TPC Deere Run.
Spieth, who finished 44th at The Open in 2013 and 36th a year ago, is unbowed by that history, and, perhaps, with good reason. He is accustomed to making history, instead.
When he won his first leaping deer trophy just a couple of weeks ahead of his 20th birthday two years ago, he became the first teen to win a TOUR event in 83 years. He returns a four-time TOUR winner on the cusp of assuming the rank of No. 1 in the world, one keeping company with the greatest players in the history of the game.
“It’s pretty awesome,” he said of his status as one of six players to win both the Masters and the U.S. Open in the same year. “I don’t take it for granted.”
Likewise, he insisted, he’s not being careless with the chance to make more history. The competitor in him wouldn’t risk the shot at the Grand Slam simply to keep his word. His sights are set on St. Andrews and the opportunity to join Hogan, a fellow Texan, as one of two players to win the season’s first three majors.
“That would be pretty cool,” Spieth said. “And then maybe zero names after that. There is an opportunity to actually be in a different category in a single season.”
Yes. Spieth is squarely focused on becoming the first winner of the modern Slam. Behind the leaping deer and the Claret Jug, he is angling for the Wanamaker Trophy at next month’s PGA Championship at Whistling Straits in Wisconsin.
And then? He will look to keep company with names like Nicklaus, Woods, Palmer and Hogan in the duration of a long career.
“If I can somehow stay with those names for years to come, versus just this season, that’s when it is going to really set in and be extremely cool.”
Spieth isn’t just about reeling in giant sharks; he’s committed to becoming a big fish, too.