[Panting...heavy breathing...sucking for air]
We're just catching our breath from what was one of the wildest Sunday back nines we've ever seen at a major championship, but Jordan Spieth is your 2017 Open Championship winner. Spieth is the champion golfer of the year and now holds the Claret Jug, the oldest and most prestigious trophy in golf, for the next calendar year. But all the titles and awards and sundry items that come along with winning his third major tell nothing of the story of the final two hours at Royal Birkdale.
Spieth joins Jack Nicklaus as the only player to get three of the four legs of a career grand slam before his 24th birthday, which comes next week. We've already seen him match the scoring record at The Masters, back it up with a nails Sunday finish at The U.S. Open, and implode on a Sunday at The Masters. So much as happened already that it feels like he's 33 and not 23. But this Sunday finish at The Open may top them all, and that's because he somehow pulled it out of his rear when he clearly didn't have his best stuff.
After making four bogeys through the first three rounds, Spieth started Sunday with four on his front nine alone. It was a mess. He was shaky with the putter, wild off the tee, and just hanging on for dear life playing alongside Matt Kuchar. A three-shot lead was gone and it looked like a pillow fight the opposite of that classic Henrik Stenson-Phil Mickelson duel from last year.
Then things went completely off the rails in every direction.
The real madness started at the 13th hole, where Spieth hit one so far off line, he ended up playing from the driving range over some equipment trucks and massive dunes. The hole took a half-hour and when it was all said and done, the only damage was a bogey. At the start, it looked like a double or triple or worse, the kind of mess that ruins major hopes.
It was an all-world bogey, but what followed next was one of the great responses and charges in the history of major championship golf. The response started on the very next hole, where Spieth damn near made a hole-in-one.
He would make his short birdie putt to immediately get back the shot he dropped from the adventurous 13th, and then just put the pedal down and ground Kuchar to dust.
The hole-in-one would have been an outrageous way to make up two strokes, but the eagle he drained on the very next hole was pretty amazing in its own right. Spieth poured in a bomb of a putt, then told his caddie, Michael Greller, to go fetch the ball while walking off the green. This was one of the all-time boss reactions.
Somehow, Spieth was back in front after looking like trash for much of the day and needing 30 minutes to figure out how to make one of the more absurd bogeys in Open history.
The near ace and eagle were just a part of the response, as Spieth went ahead and poured in birdie putts at the 16th and 17th too! The one on 16 had Kuchar shaking his head and laughing as he walked off the green.
The birdie-eagle-birdie-birdie is a finish that might be Spieth's greatest major championship moment. We know he has the Masters scoring record but this flourish even had Johnny Miller, not quick to praise, calling it the greatest finish he'd ever seen.
Spieth will now go to the PGA Championship in just three weeks with a chance to become the youngest ever to win the career slam.