Birkdale Crowns Kings: Spieth’s Victory Elevates Him into Elite Company

SOUTHPORT, England – The hallowed links of Royal Birkdale, host of ten Open Championships since 1954, have witnessed the triumphs of golf’s greatest icons on its wind-swept shores.  Peter Thomson, the legendary Australian player known for his five Open Championship victories, won two of his titles at Birkdale in 1954 and 1965.

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In 1971, Lee Trevino conquered the same links to earn his first Claret Jug.  In 1976, Johnny Miller dominantly outlasted Seve Ballesteros and Jack Nicklaus to win by six strokes.  Seven years later, Tom Watson won his fifth and final Open Championship, reaching the cusp of Harry Vardon’s record six Open titles.  Later champions at Birkdale include Ian Baker-Finch in 1991, Mark O’Meara in 1998, and Padraig Harrington in 2008.  With Spieth’s victory this year, the nine Open champions at Royal Birkdale collectively possess a remarkable thirty-seven major championships.  Of the retired champions, all but one are members of the World Golf Hall of Fame.  Padraig Harrington and Jordan Spieth, two current players who each possess three major championships apiece, will surely join that elite company at their careers’ conclusions.

History has clearly demonstrated that Royal Birkdale crowns only golf’s greatest champions.  With his victory, Spieth joins that same elite company.  But perhaps the greatest coronation into Royal Birkdale’s royal family—and one that deeply resembles Spieth’s win this week—was that of The King himself: Arnold Palmer, in 1961.

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When Arnold Palmer ventured across the Atlantic for the 1961 Open Championship, he was setting an example that would convince generations of future professionals (like Spieth) to compete in Britain’s prestigious championship.  Participating in only his second Open, and riding a wave of confidence after his runner-up finish at St. Andrews in 1960, Palmer overcame fierce Irish winds and rain to win the prize he “wanted more than anything”.  Ironically enough, Palmer’s victory at Birkdale in 1961 also constituted his third leg of the career grand slam—not unlike Spieth’s triumph last week on the same hallowed links.

Like Jordan, Palmer’s performance in Southport left only a single obstacle to claiming the career grand slam: a victory in the USPGA Championship.  Despite three runner-up finishes, Palmer would never achieve this dream.  Nonetheless, after a similar triumph at Birkdale, twenty-four-year-old Jordan Spieth now stands precisely where his legendary predecessor did fifty-six years ago, now awaiting only an elusive Wanamaker Trophy to finish what The King could not.  In two weeks at Quail Hollow, the reigning Champion Golfer of the Year will encounter his first opportunity to claim that coveted career grand slam.

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If Royal Birkdale crowns kings, then Jordan Spieth was inducted into golf’s royal family last Sunday.  When the R&A chairman, Martin Slumber, finally laid the Claret Jug into Spieth’s outstretched hands—and the twenty-four-year-old American for the first time admired the dignified trophy after which golf’s many legends have sought since 1871—his awe was apparent.  Even with three majors and eleven PGA Tour victories to his name, Spieth was momentarily lost for words.  Standing over the microphone with legions of patrons watching, Spieth paused.  Admiring the ornate jug in his hands, the three-time major champion’s voice trembled as he merely remarked, “Wow.”

More than fifty-years earlier, a muscular thirty-one-year-old Arnold Palmer reacted similarly.  So awed that he forgot to grab his winner’s share of the purse, Palmer simply admired the trophy and said, “Oh, beautiful. Thank you. This is very, very lovely.”  If Arnie was crowned king at Birkdale in 1961, Jordan Spieth has now been inducted into golfing royalty there as well.  Overlooking Birkdale’s 72^nd green, as Jordan Spieth claimed his first Claret Jug precisely where Arnie won a half-century prior, it is appropriate that the towering grandstands were all inscribed with a modest commemoration of Arnold Palmer’s legacy and passing.  “Arnold Palmer: 1929-2016”, they told the gallery’s thousands of patrons.

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Arnie’s presence at Birkdale still endures in other hidden recesses of the hallowed links.  On the par-4 16th, a humble plaque commemorates the legendary 6-iron save that Palmer salvaged en-route to his 1961 Open victory.  Weathered by the Irish Sea’s elements for a half century, the archaic-looking plaque appears as bygone as the champion whose shot it memorializes.  It’s timeworn dilapidation reminds us that the legendary Arnold Palmer is, indeed, gone.

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Amidst the melancholy of Arnie’s absence, however, there is also hope. More than a half-century after Palmer’s historic win on Birkdale’s windswept links—and only a year after The King’s passing—the ancient course at Royal Birkdale has coronated another “king” for us: one who displays every aptitude to dominate the game with as much dignity and class as his predecessor.

Cover Image via YouTube