in Blog, In The Clubhouse by Jeff Waters

JORDAN SPIETH IS NOT A ONE-HIT WONDER

spieth_1442_masters15_d4_jacket_smile[1]

For those casual golf fans out there that don’t follow the sport of golf other than watching the Majors on TV, engage in social media or watch late night television, Jordan Spieth seems to have appeared out of nowhere. He shows up, wins the Masters, the attendant green jacket, a lot of money and accidental watchers of the sport somehow think he won the lottery.

But I’m here to tell you this 21 year old kid from Dallas, Texas, with a solid upbringing and a Jesuit education, has already done things in golf very few have ever accomplished not named Jack Nicklaus or Tiger Woods.

For starters: He and Tiger are the only players to win multiple United States Junior Amateur titles; he was the Rolex Junior Player of the Year in 2009; was named the best junior golfer in the United States in the 2009 Polo Junior Golf rankings; played in his first PGA Tour event at sixteen and made the cut finishing in the top twenty; selected for the 2011 Walker Cup matches and did not lose a match; was a 2008, 2009 and 2010 AJGA First-Team All-American; reached the quarterfinals of the 2011 US Amateur; played collegiately at  the University of Texas where his team won the 2012 NCAA National Championship; turned professional and won the 2013 John Deere Classic becoming the first teenage winner on the PGA Tour since Ralph Guldahl in 1931; selected to the 2013 Presidents Cup team; won the 2013 Rookie of the Year on the PGA Tour; almost four million dollars; and to cap it off, all these accomplishments happened while he was still a teenager.

Last year, in his first full year as a PGA Tour member, he won twice, finished second in the Masters, played on the Ryder Cup and increased his winnings to almost four and a half million dollars.

He started this year with five top ten’s and a win at the Valspar Championship. In his last three starts before Augusta he finished 1st, 2nd and 2nd , climbed to number four in the world golf rankings, won over three million dollars before Easter and somehow people think this kid just showed up and won the 2015 Masters.

I have often said, whenever I am asked for my opinion on the state of professional golf and the trickle-down effect on golf in general, for golf to be successful, marketable and popular to the masses it needs: either a dominate force, like Tiger Woods; or a genuine rivalry like we saw during the Jack Nicklaus years when Arnold Palmer, Gary Player, Johnny Miller and a number of other players took their shot at Jack.

In the years following Jack’s success, 18 professional majors, and his ascendency to the best player to have ever played the game, golf lost its popularity due to the fact that no one could take Jack’s place as the dominant force in golf, until the arrival of Tiger Woods.

Tiger, who famously taped Jack’s accomplishments to his bedroom wall, came close to Jack’s records and his performance on the golf course for the last 10-15 years has been magical. TV ratings were up, interest in golf bloomed, “The Tiger Effect” it was called, and golf was marketable again.  The problem with Tiger’s reign, as the best player of his era, is the rivalry with other players was almost nonexistent. There were usurpers: Phil Mickelson, Steve Stricker, Ernie Els, VJ Singh, Jim Furyk and others all took their shot at Tiger but none could sustain lasting and long term competitiveness or create a legitimate excitement in their rivalry.

With Tiger succumbing to age and injuries, golf’s popularity has declined, television ratings are down and casual fans everywhere are losing interest in the game. Returning to my main argument, for golf to be successful, it needs a mega-superstar or a genuine rivalry between the best of their era to sustain significance in the world of sports.

This brings our conversation squarely back to Jordan Spieth, his recent triumphs on the world stage and another young superstar, Rory McIlory. Golf’s trajectory and its future are now squarely in the hands of these prodigies and now equal rivals for center stage in the world of professional golf.

Both are under twenty-five, have won major golf tournaments, genuinely nice people and both are set to gain their place in golf history to be included among the best to have ever played the game. After Spieth’s win at Augusta, they are ranked number one and two in the world. It’s no coincidence that television ratings for this Masters were the highest since 2008, Tigers last great year.

Golf needs this rivalry for many reasons and it should only get better. Jordan Spieth and Rory McIlroy are the real deal and both are going to be around for a long time. I and millions of golf fans worldwide are excited to vicariously join them on their journey as they take golf to unfathomable new heights and glory.

At the Masters I’m Jeff Waters

 

With over a half-century of engagement in the sport of Golf, Jeff Waters has become one of the most accomplished, experienced, and qualified Golf Professionals in the history of the PGA of America. He is a fully certified and trained Master Professional joining an exceedingly small and elite group of Professionals in the World to have achieved this prestigious title. Jeff holds University Degrees in Political Science, Teaching Minors in Economics and Finance, attended graduate school in Commercial Recreation, taught undergraduate classes at the University of Utah, and earned a master’s in business administration. With more than fifty years of experience and success in the business of Golf, Jeff spent ten years playing and competing in the game at all levels ten years laboring as an Assistant Golf Professional, acquiring the job-related skills, responsibilities, and training required for a career in golf, ten years fulfillment as a PGA Head Professional overseeing all aspects of the total golf course operation, three years’ service as Director of Player Development for Salt Lake County Parks and Recreation, administering and managing multiple golf course programs and activities, thirty-three years as a Golf Coach and Instructor at The Rocky Mountain Golf Academy, The University of Utah’s College of Health and the Granite Peaks Community College, teaching and tutoring the game. Additionally, Jeff has spent the last twenty-seven years as the Owner, President, and CEO of Rocky Mountain Golf Enterprises (RMG), a Utah-registered and licensed business offering golf-related services throughout the Western United States utilizing golf as the marketing tool. Finally, Jeff has performed on the national media stage for the past thirty-eight years as an Announcer, Author, Producer, and Talk Radio Host, communicating and sharing the joy, art, and skill that is the Game, Sport, and Challenge of Golf. Jeff, a well-known golf journalist, has been active in print media from an early age. His articles, commentary, and features regularly appear nationwide. He has authored two golf instruction books: “The Ten Commandments of Golf, Proven Principles That Make Your Golf Game Better,” and “The Short Game, the Transition from the Golf Course to the Putting Green.” Both are available as e-book downloads and on Amazon. Jeff penned his first short story while still in his teens and has since published 100’s of commentaries, essays, and instruction pieces in magazines, blogs, internet forums, and other platforms, including Golf Today, Utah Golf Magazine, Utah Golf News, Rocky Mountain Golfer, Fairways Magazine, Jackson Hole Golf News, Talking Golf with the Golf Guy, Voices in the Community.com, and Jeffgolfguy.com. He is the author of multiple books, stories, articles, posts, and evaluations of other writers’ publications. Jeff began his public communications career in High School and has had a constant presence in sports commentary throughout the years, providing play-by-play and color analysis at many diverse levels, including announcing football, baseball, and basketball games, along with local and national golf tournaments, while performing on other media platforms as well. Jeff was an early pioneer in Sports Radio, hosting a weekly talk show, “Talking Golf with the Golf Guy,” broadcasted and aired on various radio stations throughout the regional market, syndicated nationally on The Rocky Mountain Golf Network, and offered on most of the recognized podcast directories and streaming services. Over his extensive announcing career, Jeff has provided the vocal narration for hundreds of voice-overs, commercials, radio programming, sports interviews, tournament updates, blogs, podcasts, audiobooks, and videos, including the original voice work on the best-selling X-Box Links golf game. Jeff also contributed voice and commentary on the Centennial production, “One Hundred Years of the Utah State Amateur,” which is available on iTunes and Apple Music. As a member of the Golf Writers Association of America, Jeff has attended and reported on-site more than a hundred golf tournaments, including an assortment of Major Golf Championships, including The United States Open Championship, The Masters, the PGA Championship, and The Ryder Cup, along with other competitions on the PGA Tours annual tournament schedule. Jeff has produced, directed, and distributed numerous film and video projects as stand-alone presentations while incorporating them within his blog, website, syndicated podcasts, and national radio programming. All are available for review on YouTube. Known as “The Voice of Golf” and “The Golf Guy” throughout the Western United States, Jeff is regularly sought for advice and counsel and often speaks to groups on golf-related subjects. You may contact Jeff by email at jeffgolfguy@att.net and on his website at www.jeffgolfguy.com.