Jordan Spieth gets his 8th PGA Tour win faster than Tiger Woods

We tend to make dramatic conclusions too quickly in all sports these days. It’s the nature of the cycle and the need for instant reaction to everything that just happened. This is often silly and fruitless for every sport, but these sweeping characterizations and conclusions can look especially dopey in golf.

They did on again on Sunday at Colonial, where Jordan Spieth won the Dean & DeLuca Invitational by three shots. The victory was his eighth on the PGA Tour, an accumulation that even Tiger Woods did not achieve prior to his 23rd birthday. Spieth is another one of those rare talents that illuminates the relativity of the word “slump.”

This was a player who had finished outside the top 20 once (one time!) in the last three months but if you followed on Twitter and listened to the broadcast, you might think he was completely washed at 22 years old. Last week down the road in his hometown event, the Byron Nelson, CBS analyst Nick Faldo talked about the “fragile” nature of Spieth’s game. His swing was picked apart and analyzed over and over -- this became the theme of the Dallas event and its broadcasts had their narratives to follow over a few hours of air time.

Spieth, by his own admission, was struggling a bit with his swing and missing in both directions. But he was still right there on the leader board and hadn’t exactly dropped outside the top 500 in the world rankings. We heard the same with Rory McIlroy, another talent where the expectations are set in a different stratosphere from the rest of the chaff.

A few shaky swings, holes and rounds mean super talents like Spieth and McIlroy have lost their game. But because they’re super talents, they can make that proclamation look really stupid just a day or week later. Spieth got his first win in his home state with an explosive finish that had the crowd in a frenzy, and of course Jim Nantz. He started the final round in yet another Sunday final round pairing and after stalling out on his front nine, Spieth posted six birdies on the back and three on Colonial’s closing holes. It was a hell of a statement.

This was Spieth doing what he does best -- deflating his opponents with some short game wizard stuff. Even he called the 17th chip-in one of the luckiest holes of his life. It also led to an all-time bat flip.

Just like that, the “slump” was over and he’d outpaced Tiger Woods with another career achievement.

The last three weeks have made these instant reactions and takes look so dumb (I’m guilty and dumb too!). There was the aforementioned doubt about the current state of both Spieth’s and McIlroy’s games. But there was also the idea that Jason Day had put significant distance between himself and his “Big Three” colleagues after that dominating Players win. Spieth and McIlroy needed only two weeks to each respond.

The juiciest part is that both Rory and Jordan came back with their best stuff in the best way they know how. Rory with those outrageous fairway wood bombs dropped on top of the flagstick at his home Irish Open, and Jordan with the chipping and putting back home in Texas. Spieth is one of the few players in the history of golf that can make putting highlights look consistently exciting. Day, Spieth and McIlroy all doing what they do best and winning with the U.S. Open now just two weeks away? I’m salivating at the possibilities.