Jordan Spieth Probably Won’t Win One for the Young Guns

While you were wishing a pox on the house of whichever broadcast executive decided that sports should start in the afternoon on Sundays, Jordan Spieth was preparing for the biggest round of golf in his 16 years on Earth. He’s playing that round today, at the Byron Nelson Championship, and he began it just six shots behind leader Jason Day.

It’s already pretty clear that he won’t obliterate the 99-year-old record for youngest winner on the PGA Tour, sadly: Spieth opened with bogeys on the second and third holes and was eight shots behind Day even after a birdie on the par 5 seventh. But Spieth is a sensation at an event that is lacking wattage this week, and his tale, combined with Jordan Romero summiting Mount Everest, makes this a good week for precocious teenagers named Jordan and a better week for people who use the word whippersnappers.

Spieth isn’t a flash in the pan, either. He won the U.S. Junior Amateur last year, and his play at the Byron Nelson is likely to eclipse what Justin Leonard did as an amateur 17 years ago, when he made the cut and finished 55th. He’ll be spending the summer playing golf, defending his Junior Amateur title and playing in at least one more tournament, in Memphis, on a sponsor’s exemption. I suspect we might see Spieth as a PGA Tour pro in five years or so.

And, heck, just think how good Spieth might be by this fall, when he finally becomes a high school senior. At the very least, he’ll have a topic for that “What did you do this summer?” torture essay.

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