
Jordan Spieth arrived at the 18th hole upon Sunday one stroke behind Tanker Reed and in need of a birdie to try to force a playoff within the Masters.
Has been he nervous? Cotton mouthed? Fighting to breathe?
How about completely oblivious?
It turns out Spieth didn’t take a look at a leader board on Sunday till after he holed out for bogey along with a 64 at Augusta National, meaning he has was unaware of how close up he came to completing the most unlikely comeback in Masters history.
“That was our plan going in, ” Spieth mentioned. “I’m nine back. Go out and have fun. Don’t worry about the golfing tournament itself, worry about playing Augusta National. ”
It is not unheard of for a golfer such as Spieth to avoid tracking other players’ scores through a round so he is able to focus solely on the next photo. On one level, the strategy is sensible because the obstacles in front of you don’t alter whether you’re 10 back or even one ahead.
But when you compare that strategy to additional sports, it borders on negligence. Imagine a hockey team lower a goal but not knowing that it needs to a goalie in the last minute. Or perhaps a basketball team unaware it needs in order to foul to get the ball for a final shot. Think about a football team tossing the ball into the middle of the industry when it was tightly nursing the lead in the last minute; or a marathoner passively letting runners pass through behind down the stretch because “they were only worried about the training course. ”
You receive the point. Only in golf can a competitor shut himself removed from his surroundings so defiantly, and after that seeing it nearly work. Because which is other part to consider. As much as you could question whether Spieth might have gained knowing where he stood late upon Sunday, it’s quite possible understanding would have introduced a new internal monologue that might have only been detrimental.
“When We finished and I looked at the table I could have been in the lead simply by two and I could have been down 4, ” Spieth said. “And none one would have surprised me. inch