He has his own bobblehead now. He has filmed a commercial with Stephen Curry. He has a bank account he could easily live on for the rest of his life, and his fame has probably expanded ten-fold just from this time last year.
But Jordan Spieth, still just 22, appears to have remained wholly unspoiled by the trappings of overwhelming success that has made him the world’s No. 1 golfer, not only in the official rankings but the unofficial buzz.
He’s not at a Tiger Woods level yet, but he’s closing fast and he has loads of time. He already might be there if there was something controversial or negative TMZ could write about him. But so far ... clean cut, clean slate. Spieth remains cordial, humble, playfully witty, self-deprecating and remarkably down to earth for someone who has come so far so fast. He’s even still dating his high school sweetheart.
As for being the top-rated golfer in the world, he’s having fun with it, not wearing it around his neck like an anvil.
“As far as the No. 1 ranking goes, you’re just recognized more,” Spieth said Wednesday. “You tweet, there’s a good chance it can end up on ESPN ... the kind of stuff that wouldn’t have happened before.”
“Before” wasn’t that long ago. In 2013, Spieth was a fresh-faced 19-year-old fledgling pro from the University of Texas who cashed his first check right here at the Pebble Beach Pro-Am, which he will play for the fourth consecutive year that started Thursday. Playing on a sponsor’s exemption that first time around, he made $65,000 for finishing in a tie for 22nd.
In 2015, while still fresh-faced, he won five tournaments, including the Masters and U.S. Open, finished in the top four in the other two majors, claimed the season-ending TOUR Championship as well as the year’s FedEx Cup points title. He received a $10 million bonus for that, and coupled with his tournament earnings of better than $12 million _ a record for a single year _ made himself a very rich young man. And that doesn’t even take into account the flood of endorsements he has picked up along the way, including AT&T, Under Armour, Coca-Cola, Rolex, Titleist and many more. But he still speaks like the next-door neighbor kid, a bit awestruck by this whole celebrity thing even now. He admitted he still gets his own goose-bumps around some of them.
“The other day I met (NBA star) Dirk Nowitzki for the first time,” he said. “I grew up living half a mile from him, and he was my sports hero growing up in Dallas. I had never met the guy. So a few weeks ago, I got the opportunity to go down after a Mavs game and hang out with the players and take picture with Dirk. And I thought that was pretty awesome.”
Spieth still talks of Woods with exceeding reverence, even though while playing at Torrey Pines in 2014 with Tiger as his playing partner, he shot a 63 while his idol shot 71.
“It wasn’t like a ‘wow, I’m better than you’ moment by any means,” he recalled. “It was just a round.”
Spieth was more animated talking about how Woods inspired him to seriously pursue golf as a youngster.
“Yeah, it was the 2005 Masters,” he said. “The chip-in on 16. That’s the greatest clutch shot chip. As many as he’s had, that was one that I’ve watched over and over and over again on YouTube just because how incredible it was.
“That was what really cemented it. I was probably 11 or 12 at that time, just starting to really pick golf as my No. 1 sport and fall in love with it. What it did for me was it made want to go out that day, that evening, and go work on my short game.”
He hasn’t yet lost that innocence or exuberance despite his exploding celebrity status. Playing this week with his long-time amateur partner, country singer Jake Owen, he talked excitedly about all the side bets he likes to make while out on the course during a friendly round. Owen recalled one from his own charity event when Spieth asked for odds on holing a 98-yard approach shot _ and then not only did it, but told him “pay up” while the ball was still in the air.
“No lie, I’m watching it, it hits three feet behind the pin, spins back and goes in the hole with all these people watching,” Owen said.
While Owen was telling the story, Spieth just listened and grinned impishly. “If you call enough of them, once in a while they’re going to go in,” he said. “I’ve been doing it going to back to like grade school with friends. We just kind of mess around. It’s just, hey, whatever, hole-in-one, you owe this. It’s probably not going to happen, but when it does, you get a good story out of it.”
Just a couple of years ago, Spieth would have been telling that story to about five people in the AT&T Pebble Beach press room. He was ranked a respectable 16th in the world in 2014, finished in a tie for fourth, but still hadn’t “arrived.” Last year, he came to the tournament and finished tied for seventh as the world’s ninth-ranked player. He was starting to gain some significant media attention, but he still hadn’t scratched the surface as far as what was to come. Wednesday, his pre-tournament news conference was Tiger/Phil-like. Packed. A dozen cameras. Every seat taken. The room, as one reporter put it in a question to Australian star Jason Day, who only won the PGA Championship last year and is ranked No. 3 world-wide, was “heaving” for Spieth and half-empty for him.
“It just shows I need to work harder,” Day said with a half-smile. “Hopefully, a couple more people will fill the room after that.” It’s going to be tough to catch the current No. 1, though, who started 2016 by winning the Hyundai Tournament of Champions, shooting 30-under par and depositing another $1.3 million in the bank. All the while, he continued to wear the top spot with casual aplomb.
“As far as my responsibility with it, I don’t think it changes with anything I’ve done,” Spieth said. “I think that there’s just more of an interest in being nice to people, smile. But the label shouldn’t change who you are, good or bad.”
Jordan Spieth
