"Why Haven't We Gotten Behind Lydia Ko?"

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That's a question posed by Shane Bacon and it's a legit one as the golf community fawns over Jordan Spieth while the outside sports world yawns at both of these talents.

There are legitimate reasons to see why Ko-mania hasn't overtaken the game: she just won the fifth major that wasn't a major until recently and she's really a quality person whose only discernable neuroses was in caddie hiring, hardly making her unusual. But as we know, the world struggles with people who are pretty much all-around likeable.

That said, Bacon makes a statement that hits home, even for this Young Tom Morris fanboy.

She's already the greatest teenage golfer, male or female, in the history of golf, and now she's winning the biggest of the big with final rounds that match what Johnny Miller did at Oakmont back in 1973.

We as golf fans, and sports fans, need to do better on this front. Ko is making history. It's our responsibility to start paying attention.

He's right. She is the greatest teenager the game has ever seen.

Spieth is a nice guy too for an old man in his early 20s. He's super accessible and yet network cameras zoom right by him because Tiger Woods is in the same corporate box.

Is it that we want our superstars to be a little weird, a little mysterious and a little dark?

Are Spieth and Ko just too nice for the rest of the sports world to take notice?

How's that for a rhetorical question?

Poll: Spieth Wins PGA, Greatest Year In Modern Majors?

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As noted in Golf World and debated on Morning Drive, Jordan Spieth has a chance to join Ben Hogan and Tiger Woods as three-out-of-four major winners in one year. A win also gives Woods a strong run for the best single year in major play.

My question: would Spieth’s Win-Win-T4-Win match Tiger’s 2000 5th-Win-Win-Win? (This assumes no runaway win by Spieth, which seems unlikely given the form of so many players with good vibes at Whistling Straits.)

Damon Hack noted in our Morning Drive debate the size of Tiger’s winning scores as evidence of Woods-2000 remaining the greatest single season performance in majors. Call it the Secretariat factor.

Ben Hogan won the '53 Triple Crown, choosing to play The Open over the PGA. Got him a ticker-tape parade, so I'm including it too as an option for the non-millennials.

Even if Spieth just finishes in the top five, he becomes just the fourth player in history to finish fifth or better in the season's majors (Rickie in '14, Woods twice, Nicklaus twice). Pretty incredible.

What say you?

If Jordan Spieth wins the PGA, greatest year in the modern majors?
 
pollcode.com free polls

Spieth's Updated Under Armour Deal Includes Personal Logo

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Darren Rovell reports for ESPN.com on Jordan Spieth's Under Armour-created logo that he will earn royalties on when a line devoted to him is reelease next year.

Rovell writes:

Spieth, who initially was signed by Under Armour in January 2013 after he announced he would turn pro, had the final two years of his deal ripped up in January to give the company and Spieth another 10 years together through 2025. Although terms were undisclosed, sources say that if Spieth continues his pace on the golf course, he'll be one of the highest-paid players in the game. His payments will rise as he gets royalties from sales of his own gear, which is expected to hit the market next year.

Jordan Spieth vs. Tiger Woods At 22

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Stephen Hennessey at GolfDigest.com compares birthday boy Jordan Spieth with Tiger Woods at 22 and the numbers are fascinating (on top of the magazine covers and hair loss chase).

Spieth's five wins trail Woods by one, but Spieth has one more major.

Tiger won six times before he turned 22. (1996 Las Vegas Invitational, 1996 Walt Disney World Classic, 1997 Mercedes Championship, 1997 Masters, 1997 Byron Nelson, 1997 Colonial, 1997 Western Open.)

World ranking: No. 2. Spieth trails Rory McIlroy by one point after the British Open. Same as Tiger, who trailed Greg Norman by less than a point.

Golf.com weaves in Nicklaus and McIlroy for fun and it's shocking how many more PGA Tour starts Spieth has than those two at 22.

ESPN's Mitch Adams wonders if Spieth is the planet's best 22-year-old athlete and you'll see he in some pretty elite company (if you like baseball or basketball).

G.C. Digital posts this slideshow of Spieth "through the years" (all six of them). And Golf Central went through their top five moments in Spieth's career.

Putting Ultimately Ends Spieth's Grand Slam Quest

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The AP's Tim Dahlberg considers the Grand Slam quest and suggests the putt which will ultimately haunt Jordan Spieth came at the 17th green.

He writes:

The Road Hole was playing so long into the rain and wind that Spieth couldn’t reach the green in two. No matter, because he plopped his pitch just eight feet from the hole.

“If I stood on 17th tee box and you told me I had that putt for par on the hole,” Spieth said later, “I would have certainly taken it.”

Almost shockingly, he missed it right. The best putter in the game didn’t make the one that mattered the most.

Ryan Lavner at GolfChannel.com points out the statistical and ironic notion of Spieth, the world's best putter, costing himself a shot not with loose ball striking, but with his blade.

Because after blowing away the field at Augusta and then watching Dustin Johnson crumble on the 72nd green at Chambers Bay, this time it was Spieth who cracked on the biggest stage.

The greatest irony? His magical short game – his greatest strength – was the part that let him down the most in his quest for a third major in a row.

Ranked first on Tour in three-putt avoidance, Spieth’s speed control was off all week, leading to a career-worst 37 putts in Round 2, including five three-putts, and a four-putt on the eighth green Monday.

Spieth's post round comments about his trouble with speed all week led to the miss that was so uncharacteristically poor: his first putt on the par-3 8th.

Q. Take us through 8. You said you made a mental mistake there.

JORDAN SPIETH: Yeah, I believe we played 8 and 17 as hard as anybody -- as hard as any group today, were those two holes. It was the hardest rain and the hardest wind at the same time of the day. We stepped on that tee box, and you'd like to maybe have a downwind hole where it doesn't really make that much of a difference, but when you look up from the ball and you're getting pelted in the face, it's a hard shot, and I just tried to sling one in there and I left it 40 yards from the pin on the green there, and it's just a no-brainer. If you make bogey, you're still in it. If you make double bogey, it's a very difficult climb, and there's absolutely no reason to hit that putt off the green. I can leave it short, I can leave if eight feet short and have a dead straight eight-footer up the hill where I'll make that the majority of the time. My speed control was really what cost me this week, the five three-putts the second round, and then just my speed control in general wasn't great. On that hole I had left so many of them short throughout the week, I said, I'm not leaving this one short, I'm going to get this one up there, and instead hit it off the other side of the green where it was really dead there, so that was a mental mistake on my part. Instead of being patient and just accepting eight feet from 40 yards  like I do on a 40-yard wedge shot, I instead was a little too aggressive with it when it wasn't necessary.

And this regarding taking putting from the practice green to the course and his first putt proximity talents.

JORDAN SPIETH: Yeah, it wasn't 100 per cent. It wasn't the way it felt at Augusta. I just didn't feel like I was getting aligned perfectly. My stroke was good. I had really good practice. On these practice greens you're not able to get a good feel for the touch. It's tough to get pace practice because they're so small, so I didn't have much of it this week, and I kind of had to go off my feels, when typically you've got enough room -- I did plenty of work on the golf course, it's no excuse, but as far as right before the round getting a pace for that day and the conditions and how the greens are cut, it's tough. You have to kind of go with it after you have one long putt. That was the struggle for me in this tournament was what my -- I think my biggest advantage over anybody in the world is, and that's my first putt proximity, and that was -- I think on the lower half of the field this week, and it certainly cost me at least a couple shots.