Doesn’t get much better than this.
You can have Mayweather-McGregor.
Lightweights.
This was real heavyweight stuff.
It’s not often that you get a mano-a-mano featuring two of the best, two of the biggest stars in golf, going at it, trading blows, trading shots, going down to the wire.
Eighteen holes wasn’t enough to get a decision in the Dustin Johnson vs. Jordan Spieth throwdown Sunday afternoon at the Northern Trust.
Trust is a good name for the championship because trust us on this one — the remaining three events in the FedEx Cup playoffs will be hard-pressed to come close to what transpired at the Glen Oaks Golf Club.
This one was a humdinger, a nail-biter, a display of golf that crushes the old claim that golf is boring. There was nothing boring about this one.
You had the ultimate closer — Spieth, locked up with golf’s ultimate athlete — D.J.
You had two, three-time winners from this season, Spieth off the glory of an Open Championship, D.J. trying to find the form that made him unstoppable prior to that fateful stairway tumble last April in Augusta.
Spieth was five-for-five when he leads by two or more after 54 holes and he led by three going into Sunday. He has closed nine of the 10 times he held a 54-hole lead. Even Spieth knows that is a crazy statistic. He admitted it after his Saturday 64. “Ninety percent? I may not keep that up through my entire career.” Fateful words.
D.J. put an end to it late Sunday in front of a frenzied crowd. He had just made a miracle par save at the 72nd hole to tie Spieth at 13-under on a difficult golf course. He holed a 15-foot par putt to send it into overtime, pure payback for the 18-footer Spieth ran in on him just a hole earlier to make a miracle par save of his own at the 71st hole.
It was an incredible display of want-to by both of these world-class champions. They buried the rest of a world-class field and turned it into match play over the final five holes.
Everyone knows how D.J. has super-human length with the tee ball and that was on full display in the playoff when the two stars went back to the 18th tee.
Spieth gutted his drive but had 176 left.
D.J.’s drive was basically shot out of a cannon, it sailed 341-yards and left him just 95 yards to the hole. The writing was on the wall when Spieth’s seven-iron went long, settling on the back fringe, 25-feet too far. D.J. then pulled his 60-degree wedge and stuck one in there inside four feet. Game-set-match. Spieth missed, D.J. didn’t. Spieth even had his cap off before Johnson settled into the winning birdie putt.
Down five shots to Spieth at one point, D.J. hung in there then put this one away. He shot 66 to Spieth’s 69. When Spieth looks back, he will know his tee-ball at the par three sixth cost him this one. It found the water short of the green and he took a double-bogey six. Can’t make mistakes like that when you’re up against the No. 1 player in the world.
And Johnson looked every bit the part, every bit of No. 1.
“Tough day,” Johnson said, relieved that he’s worked his way out of the funk he’s been in since the Augusta stairway tumble. “Jordan’s a tough competitor. I feel like I played really well today. I feel like my game is where it was leading into The Masters. I just need to keep doing what I’m doing.”
And with that, Dustin Johnson put everyone else on notice for the next three weeks.
“Good luck to anyone going up against him (Johnson),” said six-time major champion Nick Faldo.
Ditto that.
2 Comments
RM
Nice commentary on what truly was an exciting finish between two superstars.
I do think Jordan is probably kicking himself today. He had at least two chances to potentially put DJ away. He missed an uphill 6 foot birdie putt that was right in his wheelhouse on (I believe) 16. He makes about 2/3 of his 6 footers, and this one was on the easy side where his percentage would be even higher.
Later, Jordan also dumped his tee shot into the sand to follow DJ’s tee shot on that par three hole. He had to be disappointed that he let the chance of keeping the pressure on DJ morph into a situation where he was the one under pressure.
Not fatal mistakes; the match could still have turned out the same. But at this level, not taking advantage of every single edge you may have is a shame. I thought there were a few times where he had a chance to keep closing the door and keeping DJ under fire. Instead, he let the door stay open and ultimately DJ blasted through.
Great round though, between two great players.
Tom Edrington
Thanks for checking in RM, it is not often that two superstars of the game end up head-to-head in a battle like the one we saw. At the end of the day, it was Jordy’s tee shot at six that really cost him, made double and you can’t make doubles when the likes of Dustin Johnson is on his game. Give DJ plenty of credit for the marvelous par he made on 18 in regulation after hitting it into an awful lie in the right rough….that was one heckuva par putt he made to sent it into sudden-death.