Time on his side but will Spieth's career grand slam time come?

The Herald Scotland

13-05-2025

In a sense, it's a bit like Stockholm Syndrome. You know, the theory that tries to explain why hostages can sometimes develop a psychological bond with their captors?
To be honest, if I was ever held captive – and I'm sure the sports editor wouldn't mind if I was imprisoned in a cellar for a month or so – I'd probably drive my abductors round the twist with relentless mutterings asking them if they had any decent ideas for next week's bloody column?
All this made-up talk of things being held in a confined space reminded me of the words of Bobby Jones after his retirement from the cut-and-thrust of the competitive game at the age of just 28 shortly after completing an historic grand slam in 1930.
Championship golf, he reckoned, was 'something like a cage. First you are expected to get into it and then you are expected to stay there. But of course, nobody can stay there.'
Having stormed what was known then as the impregnable quadrilateral – the majors in those days were the Open, the US Open, the US Amateur Championship and the Amateur Championship - there were no more hills for Jones to conquer.
As we move into another men's major this week, with the US PGA Championship at Quail Hollow, all and sundry are asking if Rory McIlroy can conquer again after his blockbusting Masters victory a month ago.
As for Jordan Spieth? Well, the Texan still has a notable hill to conquer as he seeks that elusive PGA Championship victory that would see him join McIlroy, as well as Gene Sarazen, Ben Hogan, Gary Player, Jack Nicklaus and Tiger Woods, as a member of the career grand slam club.
It's such an elite, distinguished posse, their faces should be carved into the rock of Mount Rushmore.
A Spieth success in North Carolina would be a terrific tale given all the trials, tribulations and injury-induced toil he's endured during his prolonged efforts to regain the powers of his earlier days.
The time hurtles by, doesn't it? It's a decade now since Spieth whipped us all into a lather of excitement with his own rousing assault on the single season slam in that glory-laden campaign of 2015
He'd won the Masters in the April and plundered the US Open in June. That impregnable quadrilateral of the modern era was on as Spieth touched down at the home of golf in July looking to complete the third leg of his major odyssey at the Open.
During a fraught, fascinating St Andrews showpiece, which was concluded on a manic Monday due to earlier weather disruptions, Spieth reared up just a shot shy of the three-man play-off for the title after an ultimately costly bogey on the Road Hole 17th.
A few weeks later, he was beaten to the PGA Championship crown by the sublime Jason Day. Spieth's major record that thrilling season read first, first, tied fourth, second. It was a sterling effort.
Spieth, of course, would plonk a Claret Jug onto his mantelpiece two years later with that epic Open win at Royal Birkdale in 2017. The quest to land the PGA Championship, the final piece of his career grand slam jigsaw, goes on, though.
Since that runners-up finish 10 years ago, he's been in the top-10 just once at the PGA of America's flagship event.
As my dear mam often says, 'what's for ee will no' gan by ee.' Then again? The likes of Arnold Palmer and Tom Watson won the Masters, the US Open and the Open during glittering careers. But they could never get their paws on the PGA Championship trophy.
During a profitable purposeful period, Spieth racked up 14 tour titles between 2013 and 2017, but he's won just twice in the last eight years. It's tough at the top.
Spieth has always been a captivating, and at times chaotic, performer. Remember that 2017 Open denouement? A compelling concoction of mayhem and magic, wasn't it?
Listening to him, meanwhile, remains fascinating as he chunters, cajoles, coaxes and commands his ball to do this, that and the other as he thwacks it here, there and everywhere through the air.
His meaty conversations with that little dimpled sphere can make the Frost and Nixon interviews look like a passing exchange in the pub doorway.
Spieth will always be judged by those stirring conquests of his youth which propelled him into the pantheon of greats. As a result, his various stints in the doldrums tend to get magnified. There's no hiding place in professional golf.
Through the ups, downs, twists and turns that are par for the course in this fickle game, he has confronted his struggles with honesty, heart and hard work.
When he returned to action after wrist surgery earlier this season, he declared that patience would be the watchword as he attempts to rekindle the form that illuminated the majesty of his early-20s.
At just 31, Spieth still has plenty of time on his side. It's time, meanwhile, for him to have another crack at the PGA Championship.
And whatever comes out in the wash this week, at least it'll give me something to write about in this bloomin' column.