"Jordan Spieth lends a hand to a caddie with a heartfelt mission"

Nice read from Golfweek's Jim McCabe on Jordan Spieth making a pre-Players appearance at the Tesori Family Foundation event raising funds to help special needs children.

McCabe writes:

Spieth spoke to the children, then hit some golf balls and lined up for photographs. The entire time, the two-time major winner looked comfortable; he appeared to sense what the children wanted of him and showed great patience. Soon, the highlight of the day for the children arrived — the chance to hit balls on the range or roll putts on the practice green — so Spieth mingled with a few parents, talked to a local TV reporter, then made his way to his car. He had a golf tournament for which to prepare.

It was a short visit, yes, but it had a lasting impression. “He didn’t have to do this,” Tesori said, “but it’s the type of person he is. It was really, really cool of him. It means a lot to us.”

Johnny On Cue: Jordan's Bent Left Elbow Needs Work

Unaware of a comment Jordan Spieth's instructor made a few years ago predicting analysts like Johnny Miller would criticize his pupil's swing, Johnny mentioned during a Players Championship conference call seeing more of the bent left elbow at impact in 2016.

John Strege with both Miller's critique and instructor Cameron McCormick's prescient prediction.

“He has a tendency with that bent left elbow to come down with the face open,” Miller said in a teleconference call in advance of the Players Championship next week. “He has been doing it quite a bit this year. He really did it [at the Masters]. That was an amazing miss in the water and an amazing fat shot in the water.

“I’m looking forward to seeing if he and his teacher address that bent left arm. It seems like it’s more bent at impact and after impact than last year. It will be interesting to see if we see a little swing change to eliminate that shot to the right.”

Legends Chime In On The Benefits Of Jordan's Masters Loss

Adam Schupak is reporting from the Bass Pro Shops Legends of Golf kicking off Friday and talks to a nice spread of the champions in attendance.

But as always, it's Jack Nicklaus' thoughts on Jordan Spieth's Masters loss that are the most copy-and-paste worthy, including his assertion that the 2016 outcome might be good for Spieth. 

“What I mean by that is that he’s 22 years old. To win a Masters twice at 22 years old, that puts him right at the top of everything. He’s got a long future in front of him. He’s a very talented young man, he’s a nice young man, he’s very focused. Winning it twice might take away some of that focus is exactly what I said to you about if I had won the U.S. Open when I was an amateur in 1960, I might not have continued to work because I felt like I’d be scratching my head out here (spreading his arms far apart to signal he’d get a big head).”

So there's that. And this about the 12th hole mistaken line.

Noting that his heart went out to Spieth, Nicklaus continued, “I know that he knows he should never have hit the ball to the right of the bunker. I don’t care what kind of swing you put on it on 12, it just can’t happen."

Snapping From The Bahamas: Jordan, Rickie, Justin & Smylie

Golf's newest boy band has silenced their usual social feeds and seems to be unified over Snapchat for their Bahamas buddies trip.

I know cynics will find this all a bit suspicious, what with all the mentions of the Bahamas and the adorable Snapchat graphics, but can't you just take G.R. Team's report at GolfChannel.com for what it is: good old fashioned reporting on a vacation that may or may not irk the players involved, depending on their understanding of screen capture rules?

On a more serious note, Doug Ferguson reports that the aforementioned Snappers and select peers have been visiting Jack Nicklaus for advice, who loves it.

''I don't know why they do it. They seem to think it's going to help them,'' Nicklaus said with a wink and a smile. ''I get a big kick out of it, sure. Why would you not get a big kick out of it? I'm 76 years old and I've got a 22-year-old kid coming here asking me for advice.

''How many 22-year-olds ask anybody for advice?''

Update on 2016-04-21 04:04 by Geoff

**The Bad Tans, aka golf's latest boy band, living it up:

Spring Break 2K16 in the Bahamas with @RickieFowler @JordanSpieth @justinthomas34 @smyliekaufman10 #SquadGoals ➡️These guys are all types of AWESOME😝🙌🏼 #FutureOfGolf #RickieFowler #JordanSpieth #SmylieKaufman #JustinThomas

A video posted by GolfBalled.com (@golfballed) on Apr 20, 2016 at 4:40pm PDT

Jordan Spieth Did Not Cause Under Armour's Stock To Tank

Several stories (like this one) coupled Jordan Spieth's Masters loss with an analyst report as the cause of an early week plunge in Under Armour shares.

But the Baltimore Sun's Christopher Dinsmore says the plunge was all about a Morgan Stanley analysis that affirmed an "underweight" rating on the UA stock.

Morgan Stanley analyst Jay Sole, who follows Under Armour, reportedly issued a downbeat report this weekend that said he is worried about weakening demand for women's apparel and running shoes and affirmed his "underweight" rating on the company's stock.

He called Under Armour's growth in running shoes "unsustainable" and, coupled with slowing sales to women, will result in an earnings miss in the near future.

Under Armour reports first quarter results on April 21.

"We think a large part of the issue is UA is fully penetrated in its traditional sporting goods channel and perhaps more importantly, the industry is experiencing a slowdown," explained Sole, according to this report on Benzinga.

Spieth Reads: Some Of The Reactions To His 2016 Masters

I'm battling some balky wi-fi at 34,000 feet, but got to read some of the reporting and commentary related to Jordan Spieth's 2016 Masters meltdown.

Brian Wacker at PGATour.com with a full rundown of the day for Spiethphiles and includes some post-green jacket ceremony color, including this:

A short while later, Spieth emerged from the Champions' Locker Room and onto the balcony that wraps around the front of the building before turning the corner to go down the stairs, toward the nearby parking lot and into the awaiting silver Mercedes SUV courtesy car, but not before offering one, final thought that best summed up what he was feeling.

“They just told me I can’t take my Green Jacket with me,” said Spieth, hoping the attempt at humor would dull the pain.

Phil Casey quotes Nick Faldo, who offered his condolensces to Spieth on the way to the parking lot, and who says Spieth will be scarred by the day.

"What happened to Jordan it was so sudden, just bam. It was 10 minutes of golf. That's the harshness of it."

Ian O'Connor at ESPN.com with some behind-the-scenes sights and sounds along with what Spieth's loss deprived the 22-year-old of in the eyes of history.

Spieth was going to become the youngest player in the Masters era to have claimed three majors. He was going to become the game's first back-to-back, wire-to-wire major winner. He was going to win a second Masters in his third appearance after it took Tiger Woods seven appearances to win his second, and after it took Jack Nicklaus and Palmer six appearances to win their second.

At 22, Spieth was going to match the number of green jackets won by Ben Hogan, Byron Nelson, Seve Ballesteros and Tom Watson. He was going to join Woods, Nicklaus and Faldo as the only players to win two consecutive Masters, and he was going to become the first Masters champion since World War II to have overcome at least three double-bogeys.

Gary Williams and I discussed on Morning Drive how it's not quite as awful as some may think if Spieth can put the week into the proper perspective. After he's snapped a few clubs over the knee and dragged his golf bag tied to the wing of his jet ride home.

Ryan Lavner at GolfChannel.com with some of the range scenes where it was apparent Spieth was battling something early in a day where he arrived three hours before his tee time.

Rex Hoggard at GolfChannel.com notes the many parallels with the 1996 Masters.

Michael Bamberger on the shame and shock of it all.

Yes, all this is far, far easier said than done. But he’s the best golfer in the world and all he needed to do was this: hood that 9-iron a hair, to give his ball a better chance of holding its line through the wind and, most significantly, take the water out of play. That’s the first rule on 12, as Spieth well knows. Even if he made a bogey from the back bunker, or a three-putt bogey for that matter, he still had the two par-5s left, and he’s likely to play them in one or two under.

What Jordan Spieth did was a shocker and it will be discussed for the rest of his life. If he wins seven career majors, the obits will say he might have had an eighth. If he wins 17, the same. What he needs to do now, of course, is win that third one quickly. Here comes the broken record: easier said than done.

Jordan Spieth On The 12th Hole Tee Shot

It's amazing to think that the player who prides himself as a tactician and who has proven himself at a young age to out-think a course fell victim to a tride-and-true axiom of Augusta: do not play toward the 12th hole's Sunday pin placement.

From Spieth's post-round comments:

Just a lapse of concentration on 12 and it cost me.

Q.  How disappointing is this?

JORDAN SPIETH:  Yeah, it's a tough one.  I knew the lead was 5 with nine holes to play.  And I knew that those two bogeys weren't going to hurt me.  But I didn't take that extra deep breath and really focus on my line on 12.  Instead I went up and I just put a quick swing on it.

Temptation? Pressure? Poor swing? The genius of the 12th? A little of all the above.

He continued...

Q.  What did you learn today?
    JORDAN SPIETH:  Yeah, I mean just ‑‑ I learned what I learned in 2014.  And it's just stay committed.  12 is a 150‑yard shot and I feel I can bleed it next to the hole, and it's a stock 9‑iron for me.  But that hole for whatever reason just has people's number.  Stay committed behind the bunker.  That's about ‑‑ it was really one swing.

Update on 2016-04-11 02:27 by Geoff

**Bob Harig on the history of 12th hole antics, Jordan's shot and Smylie's observation as his playing partner.

Video: New Jordan Spieth "We" Ad From AT&T

Jordan Spieth sat down to pen a blog item explaining the new AT&T ad highlighting (and maybe lightly spoofing) his "we" approach to golf. Cameos include bagman Greller, instructor McCormick, mom, dad and Tony Romo.

The commercial also provides insight into why I always say “we” when talking about our team’s success in golf. “We” is a very real thing to me. It’s my family, my caddie, my coach, my management team. It’s my sponsors like AT&T. The “we” has helped enable me to prepare effectively to return to the Masters.

The video:

2016 Masters: The Jordan Spieth Profiles

In 14th heading into the final round in the Shell Houston Open, Jordan Spieth says his putter is starting to warm up, reports Will Gray for GolfChannel.com. And in even better news, Spieth gets to share a Champions Locker Room locker with Arnold Palmer, cased on the Rusty Jarrett photo (10th) in this Masters official website slideshow.

But it's that putter which gets get most of the attention when folks discuss Spieth's historic 2015 campaign. Yet a few great reads try to discern if there is more to Spieth's supremacy. 

In the annual defending champion profile, the Augusta Chronicle's Scott Michaux travels to Dallas to tell us more about Jordan Spieth's development, family and coaching. 

This, about instructor Cameron McCormick, was enlightening.

Like breaking a spirited colt, McCormick slowly got Spieth to harness his intensity and kinetic energy into a formulated plan.

“The more challenging part was to increase desire to win with a measure of patience and recognizing that certain things take time,” McCormick said. “With the help of his parents, who did the large part of that work, Jordan became tolerant of evolving a little bit more over time and being patient and taking a really diligent long-term or
medium-term focus to his improvement.”

For the first three months they did little but work on Spieth’s putting, which was the worst part of his game. At Spieth’s own suggestion, he converted to a left-hand, low style. Eventually they “started working to expand his skill set and morph his technique ever so slightly over time,” McCormick said.

The result was a tool box that proved resistant to failure.

Doug Ferguson focuses on the "Golf I.Q." concept and asks if Spieth is just that smart, or just a great putter. 

"I think I have a high golf IQ, sure," Spieth said. "I think what that means is I'm able to dissect different situations, different lies, winds and where pins are. Not only judging the distance, but judging — based on our knowledge of the golf course — the appropriate spot where to miss is and how to make par from there."

Then again, he believes everyone on the PGA Tour has a high golf IQ or else they wouldn't be out there.

"I think your love of the game makes you want to learn more about it and learn everything that goes into it," Spieth said. "I have a passion for it."

Jaime Diaz for Golf Digest offers various thoughts on what made Spieth so superior in 2015.

To me, Spieth’s best qualities evoke athletes from other sports. At the moment, his putting is eerily good. He led in several putting categories, but the stat that resonates most is his conversion rate of better than 25 percent on putts between 15 and 25 feet -- first on tour by a lot. It’s an ability that currently separates him from his peers in the same way NBA MVP Stephen Curry has separated from his.

While some are bothered by Spieth’s tendency to react vocally to his shots, I find it a signal of a player immersed in the moment and determined to never let up. Take away the profanity and churlishness (perhaps a big ask), and Spieth reminds me of John McEnroe. Like the tennis bad boy, Spieth uses exasperation, self-castigation and body language to rid himself completely of an unsatisfying shot, so that when it’s time for the next one his mind is clear. People forget that for as tortured as his self-talk seemed, McEnroe almost always played better after venting.