US Open champ Jordan Spieth avoids question about Chambers Bay
After his US Open win, Jordan Spieth artfully dodged a question about the conditions at Chambers Bay.
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Jordan Spieth was able to tame Chambers Bay this week to win the 2015 US Open, his second consecutive major championship. The course caught plenty of heat from the players, golf legends, the media and fans for its appearance and set up -- particularly the tough-to-manage greens. Despite those issues, Spieth was able to fire a 5-under par 275 for the week and hoist his first career US Open trophy.
After his round, during Fox's televised interview, Joe Buck threw him a question about the course conditions, asking what he thought of criticisms that had been thrown at the course considering he played so well and won.
Spieth, ever the gentleman, took an interesting route in order to deliver his answer, avoiding actually talking about course conditions and instead focusing on the fans.
"We were joking about how we could certainly tell why the NFL teams don't like to come to Seattle to play," said Spieth. "These fans are awesome, it's unbelievable. To have them on our side this week and to hear the crowd screaming for us from Thursday afternoon on and hearing the support that Michael had as well, I felt like we were crowd favorites, and they certainly helped get this job done. I really appreciate it, everybody."
It was clear that Buck and Fox, which is now in a 12-year relationship with the USGA, were hoping Spieth, as the tournament winner, would compliment the course and put to rest all the criticism. He wouldn't bite. He also wouldn't slam the course either because that's not who he is as a person.
What Spieth's actual feelings were about the course conditions, we'll never know.
What we do know is that people saying the course did not affect Spieth's play are incorrect. He had 35 putts in his final round -- 1.94 putts per hole -- which is vastly different than his Masters performance when he had 28 putts in the final round and averaged 27 for all four rounds on greens that are known for being some of the most difficult in the world (but also the most consistent that offer a pure roll).
The US Open, despite criticism it received, was a success if only by its finish with Spieth, Dustin Johnson, Louis Oosthuizen and Branden Grace all competing hard late on Sunday.
For all the talk about the issues with the course, the story at the end was going to be about Spieth's triumph, Johnson's heartbreak and Oosthuizen's magical back nine 29.
Unfortunately, while the final shots on Sunday should have been solely about the US Open basking in the glory of Spieth's career achievement (at the age of 21), an attempt to get Spieth to heap some glory back on them came up short.
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