Top trio have one last shot at glory
At the dawn of the year, this triumvirate bestrode the golfing world like titans, the new powerhouse trio to dominate their sport in the same style as Nicklaus, Palmer, and Player.
With nearly eight months gone and three majors in the books, three has become four with Dustin Johnson’s back-to-back US Open and WGC-Bridgestone Invitational victories gaining him entry to the party.
And with only one major individual prize to play for, this week’s US PGA Championship at Baltusrol in New Jersey represents a final chance for Day, Spieth, and McIlroy to reaffirm their stature.
They do not call this week’s US PGA Championship “glory’s last shot” for nothing and although the Olympics has been shoe-horned into a crowded calendar, the absence of the game’s highest-ranked quartet from golf’s reintroduction to the Summer Games means the Wanamaker Trophy remains the biggest prize left to play for this year.
Having finally joined the pantheon of major champions Johnson is not under the pressure his rivals will be feeling in the East Coast summer heat this week and having followed up that breakthrough win at Oakmont with a top-10 at Royal Troon in the 145th Open a fortnight ago and last week’s strong showing at the Canadian Open, where he finished tied for second behind Jhonattan Vegas, the American world number two will start favourite this week.
By others’ standards, Day, McIlroy, and Spieth have hardly had shabby seasons.
Defending US PGA champion Day has won five times since his victory at Whistling Straits last August, his three victories this year coming at Bay Hill, the WGC-Match Play and the Players Championship.
He remains world No. 1 but has admitted he has felt anxiety with his status as the best player in the game. His dominant spell, started 11 months ago, did not stretch past May.
Both McIlroy and Spieth had enjoyed equally purple patches, the Irishman’s coming two years ago in that heady summer of 2014 when he won the Open at Hoylake, the WGC-Bridgestone, and the US PGA at Valhalla in successive starts and finished that season as player of the year on both sides of the Atlantic.
Yet McIlroy went majorless in 2015, losing his No. 1 ranking to 21-year-old Spieth, whose Texan level-headedness steered him to victories at the Masters and US Open.
Neither has won a major in 2016, although both have won tournaments, but for Spieth in particular there is the feeling he has struggled with the expectation to repeat the heroics of his breakthrough 2015 campaign.
Like that difficult second album for rock bands, Spieth has failed to rediscover the magic that propelled him to the top of the charts.
His Masters defence in April had looked effortless until that calamity in Amen Corner at the par-three 12th which let in England’s Danny Willett for the first of three maiden major wins this year.
And as Johnson crossed the winning line at Oakmont and Henrik Stenson followed suit at Troon, Spieth was limping home with a tie for 37th and share of 30th respectively, his Open marked by the previously unimaginable sight of his putter deserting him.
Graeme McDowell might not yet have reached the rarefied air enjoyed in those purple patches of the big four but 2010 was his annus mirabilis, when he won four times, including the US Open at Pebble Beach, and was a linchpin of Europe’s Ryder Cup victory over the United States at Celtic Manor.
He also suffered for his success the following year, a point he discussed after a disappointing Open finish at Troon. Asked how he coped after the Lord Mayor’s Show when hopes of replicating previous glories should be unrealistic but do not stop you reaching for them once more, McDowell immediately cottoned on to the thought process behind the question.
How do you keep going and not beat yourself up too much?
“Because it feels like a disappointment. Like a certain young American who’s having the same sort of....?” McDowell queried.
“It’s the same when you shoot a 62 the day before, it’s very hard to come out on the golf course and back up a 62. It’s nearly the same concept, the micro version.
“The macro version is coming off a year like that and trying to replicate. There’s obviously a lot of traps and I’ve no idea which trap that the American we’re talking about has fallen into.
"There are a lot of traps, you’re trying to prove yourself again to people, you’re to trying to prove to yourself, are the expectation levels too high.
"Is it that you’re comparing everything you do to last year or is it how you’re acclimatising to the new world that you’ve been thrust into, this new stratosphere and you’re just struggling in your own skin. You’re a normal guy and all of a sudden every move you make is under scrutiny.
“There’s a lot of different reasons and we see lots and lots of players fall into the trap of expectations.
“I am not sure what his reason is but it could be any of the above or something else. The kid is not having a bad year but he is in a different stratosphere now.
"He is in the Tiger stratosphere where every shot he hits is going to be questioned. Every move he makes. So it is different. It is something he has to get used to.”
As it turned out, McDowell’s follow-up season in 2011 was not too bad at all, and still not quite as successful as the one Spieth should be enjoying.
“It’s funny. ’11 was a weird year for me,” the Portrush star recalled.
“I got off to a hot start and then cooled off a little bit. If I had posted a win and competed in the Masters like he (Spieth) did, I think I finished 14th at the US Open that year, I’d have taken that. Anything would have felt like a let down.”
Broadening the subject beyond Spieth to McIlroy and by inference Day, he added: “These guys have produced runs of golf I didn’t think was possible in this day and age. It was a Tigeresque eight months of 12 months from all three of them.
"Now Dustin is potentially rolling into one of those spells. I wasn’t really sure that level was still possible. They have showed that it is. But it’s very hard to maintain that. Only a few guys have ever done it.”
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