Indulge the hype of Jordan Spieth, Rory McIlroy and the grand slam chase at the PGA Championship

Not to be hyperbolic from the start here ... but this could be the most hyped PGA Championship in its 100-year history. Almost the full top 100 in the world rankings are here, as usual, but the anticipation for this PGA got a boost into a rarely visited stratosphere for the oft-maligned (unjustly imo!) “fourth major.”

Golf and its majors rarely get the kind of matchups you want or can predict in other sports. But this week, we have two generational talents on a collision course that seems within reach come Sunday afternoon. There’s Rory McIlroy, playing his favorite championship three years since his fourth major win, the one that supposedly confirmed him as the “next Tiger” as much as a “next Tiger” is possible (there will never be another Tiger, of course). And there’s Jordan Spieth, who has come along in those three years and now has a chance to beat Tiger as the youngest ever to complete one of the game’s hardest accomplishments.

For golf nerds, there are 15 to 20 things that make this PGA intriguing to watch. The field is loaded, the course will have its usual scrutiny, and the ball is going farther than ever, heightening concerns about the future of the game that will only get more intense given what’s expected on this setup this week. We’ll get to those throughout the week, but at the top, let’s dream and indulge the hype.

Data is good. We have a mountain of data these days and incredibly efficient and sophisticated ways to process it all. There’s so much information at our disposal and so many brilliant minds filtering it for us. At every major — at every single golf tournament, really — we can appreciate accomplishments and one’s play with some sort of context. There’s always a first or a group a player joins or a milestone he or she sets. “Player X’s win at the U.S. Open featured just the third sub-30-year-old to break par in all four rounds.” “Player Y’s win at the Pebble Beach Pro-Am makes him just the first to win this many events by this age in this state.” “Player Z’s PGA win is the first in history to be completed without a three-putt and without farting.”

I’ve gotten carried away with my examples — the context is almost always helpful. But it can, at times, get dizzying and lose some of its meaning or impact. Yes, Player X just did that, but what does that really mean relative to all the other accomplishments and milestones we’re peppered with each week.

There’s an historic, simple marker at stake this week and I’m not sure the wider sports world quite understands the moment and opportunity.

Setting aside all the grandiloquence used on Spieth this week, the simple fact is that this is his one chance to make history in a way the game has never witnessed.

It is likely that Spieth joins (at the present moment) five other pillars of the game — Jack Nicklaus, Woods, Gary Player, Ben Hogan, and Gene Sarazen — by completing the career grand slam. It’s reasonable to assume he will have 25 more chances to win a PGA Championship. But this is the only opportunity he will have to become the youngest ever to do it, edging Woods’ accomplishment in 2000, you know, that peak Tiger year he played the greatest golf anyone has ever seen.

Some of the legends of the game that could not complete the career slam include Arnold Palmer, Tom Watson, Sam Snead, Lee Trevino, and Phil Mickelson (so far). It’s a simple career achievement to understand but difficulty in getting there is impossible to quantify or appreciate. Even Hogan and Sarazen, the first two to complete it, didn’t really understand its impact because the concept of the slam was not yet fully formed. It’s really just Gary, Jack, and Tiger who knew what they were chasing. And none of those three, even Tiger, had to do it in the scrutiny of the modern media (and social media) environment.

Gary, Jack, and Tiger all completed it quickly, erasing the possibility for a torturous chase that only became more intense with each missed opportunity. We’ve seen that with Palmer and Snead and Trevino and Mickelson. Now Spieth can do it at an earlier age than Nicklaus and Woods. In a loaded 156-man field and just three weeks after lifting the Claret Jug, it’s unlikely Spieth backs it up with a second straight major win. But the fact that the possibility exists is staggering, and we should appreciate the moment this PGA Championship presents.

If you’re to believe the experts, the stats geniuses, and anyone else who follows this game, McIlroy is the favorite this week and playing with a home course advantage that we rarely get at a major championship. Pebble Beach is the only regular PGA Tour stop that also hosts a major, and even then, it’s just one to two rounds the pros get at Pebble each year and in dramatically different conditions from a major.

Quail Hollow has become one of the players’ favorite stops on the PGA Tour and now they have the rare occasion to play one of those stops for a major title. This is Rory’s course. He’s won twice, lost once in a playoff, and finished inside the top 10 in six of his last seven starts. It favors big hitters, and none are bigger than Rory. The advanced stats only accentuate the Rory-as-the-favorite narrative — he plays his most aggressive, best golf here. The worst parts of his game get better too. He just walks on the course, puts a peg in the ground, and feels at home.

That we’re sitting here three years after his back-to-back major summer with someone else having a chance to complete the career slam before him is astonishing and another testament to Spieth’s instant brilliance. I’ll go to the infamous quote one more time -- after Rory and Spieth played together in the final pairing on Saturday at last year’s Masters, McIlroy confided to the press: “I turned around after 15 and I thought ‘how the hell is he 2-under-par today?” The same sentiment, but for the career slam. That Rory hasn’t completed his slam at Augusta yet seems reasonable or expected, but that someone else has come along in the short intervening time with a chance to beat him to it this week was inconceivable in the summer of 2014.

While Spieth has an historic opportunity in front of him this week, Rory may find the one he’s presented with even more enticing. He gets to play the spoiler on a course he owns and is completely comfortable on as the favorite. Rory was licking his chops as soon as Quail got a major, and now throw in the chance to Heisman the Spieth slam opportunity? No wonder he’s amped and hitting drives into the woods beyond the driving range.

So we have Rory, a four-time major winner playing on his course, against Spieth during another peak stretch of his and with an historic record in front of him. Both one slam leg away from joining five pillars of the game.

The rivalries we want and hype in golf rarely pan out the way they’re supposed to. A lot of things have to go right to get two generational stars and Hall-of-Famers exchanging blows late on Sunday at a major. There are too many players and fickle bounces and extenuating circumstances. Tiger and Phil never came together late at a major. We don’t get the obvious Warriors-Cavs bout everyone wants and expects. The collision course in golf is too full of roadblocks and speed traps and potholes. This week, there are just a few less of those impediments and that’s how we end up with one of the most hyped PGAs ever. Now it’s time to watch Rory and Jordan try to navigate it all over the next four days.