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.