Jordan Spieth had hit his tee shot right on the 465-yard, par-4 18th hole at Augusta National Golf Club, it had hit a tree, and it had tumbled down to the light rough below. From there, from 192 yards out, Spieth hit his second shot some 15 yards left of the green. He was at even par on Saturday on his final hole of his second round at the Masters. The cut, he believed, was one under.
Spieth chipped on. Short, by 15 feet. He looked down at his divot for a second. He would stay at even, at best.
Spieth rolled in the left-to-right 15-footer. He snapped his ball out of the hole.
Except, wouldn’t you know, a funny thing happened on his way to going home.
You know that 15-footer you made?
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“Nice f—–g par,” Spieth’s caddie, Michael Greller told Spieth.
“Really? It’s even?” Spieth said.
It was even.
Spieth, the 2015 Masters champion, had made the cut on the number and would continue playing Saturday during the third round. After his second round was suspended Friday on the 11th hole due to darkness, Spieth bogeyed 11 and birdied 13 for an even-par eight holes on Saturday morning, a two-under second round and the even-par 36-hole total.
“Certainly, that’s a putt where statistically you’re still at one out of three at best, but I knew what it was going to do,” Spieth said of his putt on 18. “It was just a matter of matching line and speed. So it was fun. It was a cool putt to hit.
“You know, sometimes it’s more nerve racking trying to make the cut than it is trying to win the tournament just because you know that your game’s not necessarily at its best. So to kind of power through that towards the end of the round today was nice.”
Spieth’s third round began at just before noon on Saturday. From Friday night into Saturday morning, he had over 12 hours to think about eight holes. Now, he had about an hour and a half to think about 36.
“Starting on the back nine in general, you know, we’re not used to it this week, and it’s a daunting task starting there,” Spieth said. “But I hit a great shot into 13, settled down a little bit, and after that, I was trying to – I was actually at a place where I thought, if I could get to one under, I’d feel a little bit of space there where I could start playing more aggressively, and I just never could quite get to one under to where I could feel I was going to try to move up the leaderboard versus protecting the cut line.”