The Kid Is All Right

By: Marino Parascenzo

[Editor's Note: On the eve of the 79th Masters, Cybergolf contributor Marino Parascenzo received the 2015 Masters Major Achievement Award, an honor stemming from Marino's many decades of tournament coverage, mainly for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Here's his summary of Jordan Spieth's march to victory on Sunday.]

The kid was out for a round of golf on a beautiful Sunday afternoon. His mom must have got after him as he was freshly scrubbed and his hair was neatly trimmed. Blue shirt, bright-white slacks.

He was strolling along, sometimes twirling a club. But he wasn't whistling. He seemed, well, not worried but a bit preoccupied.

Maybe he was listening for a bird that sang so sweetly. Or was something else on his mind?

But then, his mom was over there, just off the fairway, with his dad. They were making the walk with him, one endless hole after another.

And then they would be waiting as he strode up the final fairway to the thunderous applause of thousands, looking from a distance so small and insignificant against the lush, emerald carpeting of Augusta National.

You sensed he wanted to break into a run. The end was so near. He'd been waiting for this. He couldn't wait any longer. But he shushed himself, disciplined as his game.

One hole to go.

This was Jordan Spieth, out of Dallas, winning the Masters at age 21. If he'd stayed at the University of Texas, he'd be graduating now. Instead, he's in his third year on the PGA Tour, and he'd won twice before, once in 2013 and again just a couple weeks ago.

But even in his youth, he'd been bruised. The Masters got away from him a year ago, in his first try.

"I was already hungry from last year - watched it slip away and watched Bubba win. I knew I had a chance to win that tournament," Spieth said.

He was leading late in the final round in 2014, but things slipped, nerves twitched, and Spieth tied for second behind Bubba Watson. Nothing twitched this time. He led all the way and won by a comfortable four shots.

"Once we got to 16 there, that's when it started to kick in that we were getting close to the finish line," Spieth said. "And other thoughts started to come in. But unlike in the past, in the distant past - say, a year ago," talking about frazzled nerves then, "this time I was ready to make those putts."

At 21 years and 8 months, he is the second-youngest winner to Woods, by five months.

And so it's already being welcomed by some as the dawning of a new age in golf.

There always seems to be a new age. Rickie Fowler was supposed to be part of a recent one, but little has happened. Japan's flashy Ryo Ishikawa seems to have fizzled out, though his countryman Hideki Matsuyama matched Sunday's low round of 5-under 67. Jason Day keeps threatening. And so forth.

Spieth is the kid who talks to golf balls. "Go hard!" he said at the par-5 13th. "Go hard! Go!"

He was watching his approach. Really, he should have laid up short of the water there. There was no need to risk anything. But he fired a long-iron to 12 feet. He just missed the eagle, but the tap-in birdie bumped him up to a five-stroke lead.

"Be enough!" he said as he watched his approach to the 14th, the big green with the little landing area. "Just be enough!"

It was, and he parred, though losing a stroke to Rose's birdie. But it was just a tease to Rose. "Jordan didn't really open the door," the Englishman said. "He played with the lead now, it feels, like the last month," a stretch that added up to a victory and two seconds for Spieth.

Even running out of holes, Rose thought he saw some light at the par-3 16th. Spieth overcooked the green and his chip shot was lacking. Rose faced a 15-footer for birdie. It could have been a two-stroke swing. But Rose missed his bird and Spieth drained another clutch putt.

The only thing that changed was Mickelson holing a bunker shot for eagle up ahead at the 15th, getting him within five.

"I would have taken 14-under at the start of the week, and would have thought that would have won," Mickelson said. "I played great golf. Jordan played terrific."

If any shot won this Masters for Spieth, it was the miracle chip at the 18th on Saturday. He'd missed the green to the right, up on a slope. This was an Augusta lie - tight, with little grass under it, little room to get a club under the ball.

The engineers would draw up this shot: If he could lift it at all, it would be too strong and go scuttling across the green. But he popped it gently, and somehow it ended up 5 feet from the flag. He made the par putt.

Spieth was calmly setting and tying records along the way, but the big one just eluded him. His drive at the final hole was just slightly astray, but that's all it takes at Augusta National. It cost him a bogey - missing a 5-footer for par - that dropped him to a 70 and an 18-under, 72-hole total of 270 and a share of the record with Tiger Woods.

Woods wasn't a factor in his celebrated return, and Rory McIlroy, No. 1 in the world, was no threat. Still, Spieth did not lack for heat. But it was heat he kept at arm's length, leaving Phil Mickelson and Justin Rose tied for second, four shots behind.

With every punch came a nerveless counterpunch.

But it wasn't really counterpunching. Spieth was the long-armed heavyweight leaving featherweights swinging at air. Rose got to within three a few times, and Mickelson five, but each time it seemed they were building up steam, Spieth scooted away.

The thrill came at the 18th, with the approach from the stray drive, ending up just short of the green.

"It didn't creep into my mind that I had won the tournament until I hit that second shot on 18 and walked up there," Spieth said. He fell in alongside his caddie, Michael Greller. "I said to Michael before we walked up to that chip, I said, 'Mike, I think we just did it.'

"He says, 'No, you haven't yet. Don't say that. Just go up there and hit the chip.' "

The skill, composure, invention and guts Spieth showed on the 18th Saturday personified his week. That third shot had bogey written all over it, maybe double-bogey.

But it also had champion written all over it.

Marino Parascenzo can assure you that hanging around with great and famous pro golfers does nothing to help your game. They just won't give you the secret. But it makes for a dandy career. As a sportswriter with the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (now retired), Parascenzo covered the whole gamut of sports - Steelers, Pirates, Penguins, Pitt, Penn State and others - but golf was his favorite. As the beat writer for the paper, he covered all the stateside majors and numerous other pro events, and as a freelancer handled reporting duties for the British Open and other tournaments overseas - in Britain, Spain, Italy, the Caribbean, South Africa, China and Malayasia. Marino has won more than 20 national golf-writing awards, along with state and regional honors. He has received the Memorial Tournament's Golf Journalism Award and the PGA of America's Lifetime Achievement Award in Journalism. In April 2015 Marino was honored with the Masters Major Achievement Award. His writing has appeared in numerous magazines, among them Sports Illustrated, Golf Digest and Golf Magazine, and in anthologies and foreign publications. He also wrote the history of Oakmont Country Club. Parascenzo is a former president of the Golf Writers Association of America and is on its board of directors. He is the founder and chairman of the GWAA's Journalism Scholarship Program. He is a graduate of Penn State and was an adjunct instructor in journalism at Pitt.

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