Jordan Spieth’s U.S. Open win ignites majors Grand Slam hype

Jordan Spieth may have been shocked to win the U.S. Open on Sunday in the way he did but he would not be at all surprised to become the first player in history to own all of golf’s four majors in the same calendar year.

After winning the first two majors championships of the 2015 season with a dramatic and astonishing one-shot victory over Louis Oosthuizen and Dustin Johnson at Chambers Bay, the 21-year-old Texan has a legitimate opportunity to do what none of the game’s modern legends -- Ben Hogan, Arnold Palmer, Jack Nicklaus, Gary Player or Tiger Woods -- were able to accomplish. Indeed, Spieth heads to the British Open in little more than three weeks as the youngest golfer to hold both the Masters and U.S. Open, let alone in the same season.

Unfazed by the idea of leapfrogging the greatest names in the history of golf by sweeping through St. Andrews for the Open Championship next month and Whistling Straits for the PGA Championship in August, Spieth nevertheless was intent on not looking too far into the future.

“I think it’s in the realm of possibility,” said Spieth, the youngest U.S. Open winner since Bobby Jones in 1923, following his 1-under 69 final round that put him at 5-under for the week.

“I’m just focused on the Claret Jug [British Open trophy] now,” Spieth said. “I think that the Grand Slam is something that I never could really fathom somebody doing, considering I watched Tiger win when he was winning whatever percentage of the majors he played in and he won the Tiger Slam, but he never won the four in one year. And I figured if anybody was going to do it, it would be him, which he still can.”

St. Andrews could be a challenge for Spieth, who has played the iconic course just once, when he was a member of the Walker Cup. Despite his unfamiliarity with the host of this year’s Open Championship, Spieth was confident about the prospect of taking it on, especially after his success on the links-style Chambers Bay track.

For sure, the player who surgically made his way around a pristine Augusta venue proved last week that he could win without his “A” game on a course whose greens tortured his opponents but that he was able to tame.

“I’ve proven to myself that I can win on a British-style golf course now,” he said. “Now I take it to the truest British-style golf course of any in the world. And I’m just excited for the opportunity coming then, and I’m not going to think about what could possibly happen after.”

Spieth also sent a message to Rory McIlroy that he’s coming for that No.1 ranking with the ability to win on any type of course under any sort of conditions. While he could do very little wrong at the Masters, Spieth showed grit and determination in grinding out last week’s victory over his peers as well as what many players considered a bunker-filled chamber of horrors.

“Jordan transcends any sort of style of play. He has the ability to do what’s necessary, he’s got enough game for any golf course,” Golf Digest’s Jaime Diaz said on Golf Channel’s Morning Drive on Monday. “He’s going to have a tremendous amount of pressure but it seems like, at this moment, even though he does sometimes show the stress, he’s really enjoying it.”

While Diaz would not necessarily make Spieth the “favorite on paper” to win at St. Andrews with his style of play, he would do so based on “where he is in his game and where he is in his mind.”

USGA executive director Mike Davis agreed.

“Jordan is good enough to win the Grand Slam,” Davis told ESPN.com. “Somebody who can win on a course like this and the Masters, these are just two different animals. So he’s enough of a shot-maker.”

Davis concurred with conventional wisdom that holds that Spieth does nothing particularly spectacularly.

“You look at his entire game and say, ‘He’s not one of the best drivers, he’s not one of the best putters, but he does everything really well,’” Davis said. “The chances of him winning [the Grand Slam], the odds are not great. But he is absolutely capable of it.”

Spieth certainly possesses the steely nerves of a major champion. As he stood on the 18th tee after blowing a three-shot lead with a double-bogey on the par-3 17th and hearing the crowd cheer as Johnson tapped in for a birdie on that same hole, he was able to maintain his equilibrium.

Indeed, despite a final round he termed the most “nerve-wracking” of his career, he and his caddie, Michael Geller, essentially chanted to each other, “We’ve done it before, these guys haven’t.”

Spieth said Geller kept telling him, ”‘We’re free rolling, there’s no reason to worry, just go about your and it will work out.’

“That’s what needs to be said out there, that’s the way I need to think out there,” Spieth said. “When I finished I didn’t think I’d won, but at least I’d gone about the mental side of it the right way. And that was the difference in the tournament.”

For the record, Spieth joined Hogan, Palmer, Nicklaus, Woods and Craig Woods as the only golfers to go back-to-back with wins at the Masters and the U.S. Open. Hogan, among modern players, has come closest to taking down four majors in a single season when he won the 1953 Masters, U.S. Open, and Open Championship.