CARNOUSTIE, Scotland—On Thursday morning, Jordan Spieth was driving to Carnoustie for his opening-round tee time in the 147th Open Championship when he missed a turn but managed an effortless and quick about face with the massive Mercedes courtesy SUV on the claustrophobic and cramped streets of the Angus town. “Nice recovery,” his fiancée Annie Veret said.
Her future husband has had a few of those in his still young career. If only he’d navigated his way inside the ropes on Sunday at Carnoustie as smoothly.
Francesco Molinari’s magnifico performance aside—he played his final 37 holes on the toughest course in the Open rota with nary a bogey and birdied the 18th to win by two—it did not go Spieth’s way mostly because of Spieth. Molinari won the tournament, but Spieth also lost it.
While Molinari was busy going blemish-free ahead of him, the defending champion was on his way to a birdie-free afternoon in the day’s final pairing after beginning the round with a share of the lead. Worse yet, the 24-year-old Texan, who was seeking to join Tiger Woods, Bobby Jones and Young Tom Morris as the only players to have won at least four majors before age 25, simply made too many blunders to overcome.
Related: The sleeping town of Carnoustie wakes up for seven days
On the par-4 fifth, he drove into a fairway bunker and was forced to pitch out, leading to a bogey. One hole later, he pushed his tee shot well right and into the rough to leave an awkward stance. Trying to carry the burn short of the green, he opted for 3-wood and proceeded to hit his ball into a gorse bush.
The search was on and Spieth’s ball was eventually found, but a piece of the gorse lodged in his thumbnail. Ouch. What hurt more was a three-putt double bogey on one of the easiest holes on the course. Addio, lead.
“I could have played a mid-iron to the middle of the fairway, but I was trying to take the burn out of the equation by hitting 3 wood to carry it,” he said. “It was unlucky. It went into the only bush that's over on the right side. If it misses it, I hit the green and have a birdie putt.”
It was also a bad decision given the circumstance. Hindsight’s easy, of course. Spieth’s game was anything but on this day.
Yet despite going out in 39 he somehow found himself again tied for the lead as he turned toward home on the inward nine. That’s when he and playing partner Xander Schauffele were hit with a bad time, though. They’d fallen nearly two holes behind given the eventful front nine.
Spieth said he rushed himself on the par-4 10th and 11th—the latter again being one of the easiest holes and course—and managed only a pair of pars.
"That was a turning point in the round," he said. "If you get to one under on those two holes with a downwind par left, you know, it's a different story."
Instead it was more of the same story: More wayward shots and missed putts, including on the par-5 14th, which Spieth reached in two only to three-jack. On the next hole, he found another fairway bunker off the tee, pitched out and after hitting his approach to a very makable eight feet, missed. Bogey.
Related: How Jordan Spieth won the 2017 Open
One more bogey on 17 and it was game over for Game No. 40 on the afternoon.
“Obviously frustrated with hitting a couple of iron shots in bunkers,” Spieth said. “I felt like I had really good control of the ball. I didn't play the wind the right way on those two holes. I was trying to fight it instead of accepting that the wind is going to win out here.”
Still, afterward he sounded oddly upbeat, especially for a guy who had just shot 76 -- the worst score of any player in the top 25 on the leader board and the worst final round in a major of his career -- to tumble into a tie for ninth, four shots behind Molinari.
“I played patiently,” reasoned Spieth, who added that he'd already processed the frustration by the time he reached the podium. “I put good swings on it. Never got down on myself. Never got angry. Man, I just didn't make a putt today. I hit really good putts, too. My stroke is there. It's back, which feels awesome. And my game all together is back.
“I've had different parts of every single part of my game being at kind of a low point in my career, not all at the same time, but enough to where I haven't really been able to compete. It's all there, and it's moving in the right direction. So I'm actually very pleased coming out of this week.”
The ride home just won’t include the claret jug, and in the end that’s what mattered most.
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Jordan Spieth carded a final round of 76 at Carnoustie
This was not the way it was supposed to be.
Jordan Spieth was supposed to win a second straight Claret Jug on Sunday at the age of 24 and match Young Tom Morris in the history books. He was supposed to use his brilliant tactical brain to see off all-comers from his position atop the leaderboard at the beginning of play.
He was supposed to crush the field slowly but surely. Tiger Woods, Rory McIlroy, Francesco Molinari and the rest. Fairways and greens, fairways and greens. No mistakes, no encouragement to the challengers. He was supposed to use his class and his experience in applying the pressure as if he was turning his rivals in a vice.
That's what many of us thought would happen, but many of us were wrong. Young Tom can sleep again - still the only man to win back-to-back Open Championships under the age of 25.
This was a final day with many sub-plots - a magnificent winner in Molinari, a tantalising brush with what would have been golf's ultimate renaissance story in Woods, a pulse-quickening prospect of a win for McIlroy and a collapse from Spieth. A collapse. There's no other word for it.
Spieth started the day on nine under par. Had he gone round in level par he would have won The Open. But he didn't. He shot 76. Only two men failed to make a birdie all day long - and Spieth was one of them.
The most together player of them all eased his way through four holes still in front of the field. It was dull and it was methodical. It was exactly as we expected. The galleries were quiet around Spieth because nothing was happening. In the windiest conditions we had all week, he was grinding.
On the fifth, he found sand off the tee and dropped a shot. Down to eight under now. A roar went up ahead of him - a Tiger roar. The great man was growling again, now on seven under. Was Spieth put off by Tiger's challenge? Unlikely. But that's when the wheels came off nonetheless.
What happened on the sixth, a par five that Spieth found no trouble with all week was extraordinary. It was shades of his final round at Royal Birkdale last year when he ballooned his drive 100 yards off line and took an unplayable lie on the practice ground.
On Sunday, Spieth's second shot finished in a gorse bush. Perhaps the prickliest gorse bush in all of Scotland. When he arrived at the scene the American sighed and then called on the cavalry to help him. "All hands on deck," he said, as the galleries were invited to hunt for his ball.
A spectator pin-pointed its entry point. "It's 100% here," said Spieth, before sticking his arm into the needles and coming out with a thorn in his finger. He needed something to protect himself before having another rummage. He called on his caddie, Michael Greller. "Michael, get a sweater! A sweater! Michael, a sweater!"
Michael was on his way to get a sweater when a Carnoustie member by the name of David Dawson found the ball. Later, Dawson was to say that he had played round here many times and that he was never once in that bush. "It certainly doesn't look familiar," he said.
Spieth took an unplayable lie and then began the job of surveying what he had left.
"Michael, let's get a number here..." he said, when looking for a yardage.
"Tell me the number to the hole, Michael," he said again.
Greller was up and down the little hill that Spieth was perched on, madly checking the yardage on the fairway and the yardage in his book and adjusting it to take account of the angle his boss was coming in from.
"It's 108 [yards]," said Greller.
"OK, 108," said Spieth, who now had another problem with cameramen in his way.
"Come on guys. Can you just get the cameras out of my face."
The cameramen moved back, but not far enough.
"You're still there. Come on. Respect me here."
The tension in these moments was enormous. This was Spieth trying to extricate himself from potential disaster, just as he did a year ago, but only this time there was to be no act of escapology, no golfing Houdini to marvel at.
He took seven shots to complete the hole - a double bogey.
Later, he spoke about the shot into the bush and the thorn into his thumb. "I cut it a little bit," he said, holding his hand for all to see. "A little bit inside the thumbnail."
Media playback is not supported on this device 'My dad deserves this as much as me' - Open Silver Medal winner Sam Locke
'This is what you dream about'
A few holes on, he did something else he hadn't planned on doing.
He looked at a leaderboard and what he saw was Tiger sitting on top of it. "I saw it on the seventh maybe. And it was an accident. I looked up and saw Tiger at number one, leading solo, and I went to Michael and said: 'Dammit, I looked at the board, dude.' I was frustrated at myself.
"He's like, 'he [Woods] hasn't been in this position in 10 years and you've been here how many times in the last three years'. He was throwing it back at me. I was like, 'I feel fine, it's OK, this is what you dream about anyway'."
Out on the course, the vibe was all about Tiger, then it was about Rory, then it was it about Xander Schauffele, then it was Molinari.
Spieth tried to get back in the hunt, but it never happened. Out by the ninth hole, he faced a birdie putt that might have revived him. On the balcony of a house just beyond the boundary of the course hung a political banner with the word 'Yes' on it. For Spieth, all day long, it was no, no, no. He missed the putt.
He was put on the clock leaving the 10th tee. "I actually got a bad time," he said. "I felt like we played really quickly." That was a stretch. "I really rushed the 10th and 11th holes when we were being timed. Looking back, you know, that was a turning point in the round. If you get one under on those two holes with a downwind par five left, it's a different story."
That was another stretch. Having to rush was not the source of his problem. Spieth had a birdie chance on 11 and missed. He had another on 13 and missed again. The 14th was where it had to happen for him.
Sitting on six under - three over for the day and without a birdie but still firmly in contention - he had a par five to come. There were 59 birdies and two eagles on that hole on Sunday. It was the easiest out there. Spieth made par.
The game was up then. He knew it. Leaving the green, he slapped his scorecard off his neck and muttered, "dammit!"
Two bogeys in his final three holes completed his demise. He signed for a 76. Of the top 16 overnight on Saturday, his was the worst score. Of the entire field only two guys went round without making a single birdie - Sung Kang, the South Korean journeyman and Spieth, the American superstar.
"It goes your way sometimes, it doesn't go your way sometimes," he said. Philosophical to the last. He paid a warm tribute to Molinari as his last act in Carnoustie. "He's been playing unbelievable golf," he said of the glorious Italian. "He's been working his butt off."
Spieth will rise again, that's a certainty. His travails on Sunday will have hurt him, though. Probably more than we will ever know.
Media playback is not supported on this device I ran out of holes at the end - McIlroy
Open Championship, final leaderboard -8 F Molinari (Ita); -6 R McIlroy (NI), J Rose (Eng), K Kisner (US), X Schauffele (US); -5 E Pepperell (Eng), T Woods (US), K Chappell (US) Selected others: -4 J Spieth (US); -3 T Fleetwood (Eng); -1 D Willett (Eng); +9 S Locke (a) (Scot)
Northern Ireland's Rory McIlroy says he has "no regrets" after finishing two shots behind The Open Championship winner Francesco Molinari.
McIlroy eagled the 14th at Carnoustie to join a six-way share of the lead on Sunday - before Molinari carded two birdies to earn his first major title.
Four-time major champion McIlroy, 29, has now finished in the top five at two of the year's first three majors.
"I played the way I wanted to play this week," he told BBC Radio 5 live.
McIlroy said his final-day score of 70 was "up there with one of the better scores of the day".
He said: "I had a chance on the last hole to get to seven under par, but it would have been one short anyway.
"Francesco played those last few really, really well and he fully deserves it."
Media playback is not supported on this device McIlroy eagles 14 to put him back in with a chance
McIlroy finished in a four-way tie for second at six under alongside England's Justin Rose and Kevin Kisner and Xander Schauffele of the United States, while American 14-time major winner Tiger Woods held the outright lead on the final day for a spell before finishing at five under par.
"It was fantastic," said McIlroy of this year's tournament. "You have Tiger back in the mix, you have Francesco as a worthy champion.
"I was just very happy to be a part of the conversation and it gives me a lot of encouragement going into the last major of the year. It was really cool. I have no regrets."
I can win an Open - Rose
Justin Rose birdied the 18th on Friday to sneak inside the cut
World number three Rose's tie for second was his best finish at an Open.
He tied for fourth as a 17-year-old amateur at Royal Birkdale in 1998 but had managed just one other top-10 finish in 15 subsequent appearances.
But his 64 in the third round - the best score in an Open at Carnoustie - and a final-day 69 propelled him to a share of second place.
"It just proves to me that I can play well in this tournament, that I can win The Open," said the former US Open champion.
"When I'm in the hunt, I enjoy it. I play my best golf. I don't back away. I really enjoy it. It was great to get the crowd behind me.
"I hadn't felt the energy of the crowd for a while in The Open. That was a real positive for me and it renews the love of The Open for me."
Media playback is not supported on this device The Open 2018: 'Miraculous' eagles & vintage Tiger in shots of the tournament
I was a little hungover - Pepperell
England's Eddie Pepperell finished three shots back after carding 67, Sunday's best round, which gave him the clubhouse lead on Sunday afternoon.
That was despite the fact he indulged in a few drinks the previous night.
"I was a little hungover. I had too much to drink last night," said the 27-year-old.
"I was so frustrated with yesterday that today was - I wouldn't say a write-off - but I didn't feel as though I was in the tournament.
"I just had some wine with my coach. We drowned our sorrows for about half an hour. It was enjoyable. I didn't really think I had that much to drink. I'm just a lightweight."
Tommy Fleetwood, who finished runner-up at last month's US Open, began his final round with a birdie that took him to within three of the leaders.
But a real challenge never materialised, and a run of bogey-double bogey-bogey through five, six and seven ending his chances.
"I don't want to be a bit of a baby about it, but I'm obviously disappointed," the 27-year-old said.
"I didn't really feel like I did that much wrong. Could have got it going because the crowd were with me.
"I could have done things better this weekend, but it just wasn't to be. It's always sad and disappointing but it just wasn't my time."
