If Spieth (or any golfer) rinses his tee-shot, it’s his fault

Jordan Spieth and Zach Johnson’s Chat on the 16th tee at Marco Simone during the Ryder Cup that resulted in a wet tee shot was over-hyped.

Standing on the 16th tee of Marco Simone’s drivable, 280-yard par-4, Team USA’s Jordan Spieth and Justin Thomas had their backs pressed firmly against the wall versus Team Europe’s Justin Rose and Robert MacIntyre within its Saturday afternoon four-ball match. Specifically, the Englishman and the Scotsman stood at dormie against their American opponents in Spieth and JT; a stout pairing for Team USA in previous Ryder Cups who hadn’t gotten the job done at Marco-Simone to that point.

At three down with 3 to play, it’s not like JT-&-Spieth had much of a chance to salvage a half-point anyway or leave a lasting impression in fans’ minds. In other words, the damage had been done.

Zach Johnson telling Jordan Spieth to club down to a 3-wood & then coming up 50 yards short into the water.

Captaining of the highest order. Leadership 101. Remarkable.

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— Mark Fox (@ThePluggedLie) September 30, 2023

That didn’t stop the endlessly pessimistic media from criticizing Zach Johnson after the native Iowan walked onto the 16th tee to merely share his thoughts with Spieth and his caddie, Michael Greller, about the Dallas native’s tee shot. Before Spieth took his turn on the tee and ended up rinsing his 3-wood into the pond that’s located short-&-right of the green’s surface, his partner, Thomas, missed the green long-and-left with his driver.

One of ZJ’s harshest critics; a golf writer for SB Nation, claimed that ZJ’s actions “sabotaged” Jordan’s efforts on the 16th tee. Another unfortunate ZJ-critic arrived in the form of Barstool Sports’ golf journalist, Dan Rapaport, who questioned the U.S. head captain’s intentions by tweeting: “Zach Johnson telling the best players in the world what to hit like he’s a college golf coach?”

For the record, we don’t even know what ZJ specifically said to Jordan at that moment. Even if ZJ told Jordan to hit 3-wood word-for-word; which he definitely didn’t, it’s still Jordan’s call as to how he decides to golf his ball. Just like every other golfer on planet Earth, we control our own destiny. If Jordan really wanted to hit the driver, he would’ve hit it. Did ZJ help him arrive at a decision he might not have made without ZJ’s input? Maybe, but all of this noise is total nonsense.

It is laughable to me that people are blaming ZJ for Jordan Spieth’s tee shot. Would the media be bowing to ZJ had he convinced Spieth to hit 3-wood and he ended up hole-ing it? I doubt it; and, on the contrary, the media would’ve been complimenting Spieth on how he learned from his partner’s club selection; a learning curve that he would’ve shown by hitting one less club than Thomas did.

Alan Bastable, a writer for golf.com, also jumped down ZJ’s throat and led off his critiques by falsely claiming that JT and Jordan were 2 down on 16; when they were three down in actuality.

It’s not Captain Johnson’s fault, or anyone else’s fault, for what happened to the golf ball of Jordan Spieth. Believe it or not, the only person at fault was Spieth.

Without wasting too much more time on what’s already a very tired topic, Dan Rapaport’s comments about college golf coaches via Twitter lend themselves to this notion that he knows what it’s like to compete at the college golf level.

Unfortunately, he never did play college golf. But, like a lot of other “scratch-golfers wink-wink” out there; I’m sure he claims he is one.

Cover Image via Sports Illustrated