Spieth's Bogey Of All Bogeys
His 2017 Open saga at the 13th hole remains unparalleled and offers a fun reminder to expect out of the ordinary fun at Royal Birkdale.
He was trying to hit it there!
That may be the strangest byproduct of Jordan Spieth’s surreal Royal Birkdale expedition of nine years ago. His odd route to a 13th hole bogey took Spieth into the steepest and deadliest dunes on the course before ending up dropping amidst equipment trucks to produce what remains the Best Bogey By A Leading Man In A Modern Major.
To all who believe he tried to hit it there, I have bad news: he did not. Also, the moon landing was not filmed in Burbank, and New Coke was never a ploy to make us drink Old Coke. And while we’re at it, the Golf Illuminati did not remove OB stakes surrounding the range and then whisper in young Spieth’s ear to bank a drive off some unsuspecting ticketholder’s head to gain a better path to the green while taking over 10 minutes for officials to sort out an unplayable ruling that would freeze out Matt Kuchar’s final-round comeback bid.
The entire episode has since taken on a strange life. The weird theories may coarsen this week during the 154th Open now that another row of dunes has magically erupted out of the practice range border. Right where Spieth took his drop in the 2017 Open Championship.
The cover-up is always worse than the crime.
The R&A has installed out-of-bounds over in Spiethland that also wasn’t there before. The club’s driving range will be serving as the 154th’s Fan Village and requires a defined boundary on the off-off-off-chance someone blows a tee shot even farther right and induces another “where to drop” saga as picnicking patrons enjoy their fish & chips.
I can confirm, as an eyewitness standing behind Spieth, that he lined up a tad right, came off his drive, and the wind took his ball toward the tallest dune on the back nine. The wayward Titleist hit some poor lad in the noggin, then ricocheted a good 30-40 feet right into fescue no man’s land. Even on a cloudy day with raindrops falling, I could see the unfortunate ricochet. It hurt to witness and the never-identified lad did get a visit from Spieth and medical attention for his troubles.
I was standing next to golf writer Jaime Diaz, and as soon as it was time to leave the tee, I darted off to the right to see what Spieth would have next. Stomping through the steep dunes full of nasty little pockets and even nastier fern-like stuff capable of concealing a ball, a chaotic scene was already unfolding thanks to the difficulty of merely identifying his ball. Little did anyone know how long it would take to decide if the ball was his before Spieth committed to the climb down the hill and determine if the lie was playable. (It wasn’t.) Or then to need a second roving official to figure out where to take unplayable lie relief, and then how to manage line of sight relief caused by Tour trucks that were hemmed in until the circus had packed up and left town on Monday.
Upon finally arriving at the crime scene, Spieth begged the crowd to stand still and resist taking cell phone photos for fear someone might slip down the hill and into his ball.
Unable to get a trustworthy line to the flag—let alone a yardage more specific than a three-digit guess—Spieth hollered above the crowd buzz. He was pleading for the walking referee to give him the line between the ball and the hole so that he could determine his unplayable lie drop location. Spieth and the second roving official—the late John Paramor—concurred that the line could coordinate with two rear green cameras atop a tower. This put his drop location in the middle of the TaylorMade van.