Jordan Spieth: PGA Championship May Be Best Shot at Grand Slam

Jordan Spieth has played in four PGA Championships since winning the other three legs of the Grand Slam: the Masters, US Open and British Open. This will be his fifth attempt at completing the slam. Of all the PGAs he’s played, and of the ones coming up in the near future, this one may suit his game better than the others. It may be his best chance to complete the slam, that is, if his game is ready.

The Ocean Course at Kiawah Island, where the PGA is being played, is extremely difficult. However, it offers Spieth some advantages based on his particular skill set.

The course, which is one of Pete Dye’s masterpieces, was built for the Ryder Cup in 1991, sort of. Perhaps it’s better to say, it was being built anyway, and other things occurred, resulting it becoming the host of the infamous 1991 contest.

What happened was that the PGA wanted to change venues from PGA West Stadium Course to another location, preferably farther east. Fortuitously, for all parties, the company that owned PGA West already owned the Ocean Course property. They already had Pete Dye jumping on bulldozers and slogging through alligators to get the project done. Dye even overcame a hurricane in the process.

The finished product was an astonishing track which then became the site for the 1991 Ryder Cup. In a recent Golf Channel program, Johnny Miller called that Ryder Cup the most exciting golf event ever. And honestly, it might have been. It had heroes, villains, calamity and controversy.

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While it’s unlikely that the Ryder Cup atmosphere will be duplicated at the PGA Championship — simply because there aren’t as many fans — if there is some wind, the final holes could mimic the on-course drama of the War by the Shore.

The par three 17th, for instance, proved so tough that many Ryder Cuppers couldn’t get across the water to the green. Green side bunkers were their friends.

For Spieth, the Ocean Course, hard as it is, it could prove to be a grand stage for the achieving the grand slam.

What should be a plus for him is that there is a reasonable amount of room in the fairways for his drives. Spieth, historically, has had trouble finding short grass off the tee from time to time, as witnessed in his British Open victory when he conquered the field, by hitting out of the practice area. If he has a weakness, it’s there.

However, Adam Scott, who finished third at the 2012 PGA at Kiawah Island, said in his pre-tournament press conference, “There’s plenty of room to drive the golf ball for the distances, the holes. It’s not 510-yard par-4s with 15-yard-wide fairways.”

For Spieth, that’s good.

Now, should he miss just off the fairway, the rough is not horribly penal.

According to Kerry Haigh, Chief Championships Officer of the PGA of America, who actually handled the setup for the PGA of America at the 1991 Ryder Cup matches, the overseeded rye is still in the rough, although the seaside paspalum is growing out. The rough has not been mowed in three weeks, he said, and was not growing quickly at all.

“We’re seeing that you’re getting a mixture of lies but there’s a lot of balls that are sitting up, which will potentially give you sort of a flier lie, which is obviously difficult to control, and in an ideal world, that’s what we would like to see,” he explained.

He didn’t cackle when he said it, but you knew he was hoping that shots in the wrong place would perhaps not turn out as well as shots hit to the fairway.

It’s likely that every golfer in the field will find the rough at some point in the tournament, and where Spieth really shines is in scrambling. The man is king of whipping up perfect golf omelets. He can give an impossible lie a tasty result. And for certain, the Ocean Course is more about scrambling than many courses.

Rory McIlroy even attributed his victory in 2012 to his short game skill that weekend, but this time, being in the spring, he said the course is not the same as it was in August.

“One of the biggest differences that I’ve noticed is it’s not going to be as easy around the greens as it was last time,” he said in his pre-tournament presser. “The paspalum was like really strong and dense and lush, so the ball would just sit right up on top and it was so easy to just get your lob wedge out, clip it, spin it.”

He said he chipped and putted really well and that’s what won him the tournament. His scrambling.

Tuesday noon, Spieth had not yet seen the course due to some weather in Dallas that caused a delay in his arrival. He said he likes Pete Dye golf courses, but as yet, hasn’t played them as well as he’d like.

“Picking clubs off tees, picking lines off tees, are going to be important,” he explained at his press conference. “I would have liked to have seen the golf course a few times. It just wasn’t a possibility this year for me (because of COVID).”

While his schedule was slowed down a bit due to the virus, his enthusiasm for winning the PGA and with it, the grand slam, has not diminished.

“If I’m able to work my way into contention, I think it’s something that’ll obviously be asked and come up, and it’s something that I certainly want,” he noted, embracing the challenge. “I want to win this one as badly as I ever have.”

As hard as the Ocean Course is, it may give him his best chance yet.

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