NEWTOWN SQUARE, Pa. — Time is a constant presence at every major championship. It molds the stage and shapes the week’s meaning. It’s a free-flowing force that interacts with each player differently. Those who are young and full of promise are trying to speed it up; those at their peak are trying to hold it off; and others are hoping to wind it back, even if only briefly.
On at 10:50 a.m. at Aronimink Golf Club on Saturday, time and its effects took center stage.
Eleven years ago next month, Jordan Spieth and Dustin Johnson starred in a U.S. Open Sunday that will be remembered long after the dust has settled on their careers. They went out in the final two groups on Father’s Day at the 2015 U.S. Open and traded blows along the water at Chambers Bay. They were the present and future of golf, both arguably at their zenith, even if they didn’t know it.
Spieth won that U.S. Open after Johnson three-putted the final hole. Johnson would win the trophy the next year. More wins came. Both would add one more major over the last decade, doing just enough to offer the slightest reminder of the past. But things often fade quickly.
They were paired together at the PGA Championship Saturday, teeing off three-plus hours before the leaders. With a bunched leaderboard and a softer setup, the Philadelphia crowd wanted fireworks.
Spieth still looks like he did that Sunday in Washington. But he is no longer golf’s wunderkind. He’s 32 and married with three kids. He hasn’t won in four years and his major drought is nearing a decade. His game is still magnetic and erratic, the type of addicting concoction that creates electricity but fizzles as quickly as it sparks. Aside from a greying beard and the LIV Golf logo on his hat, everything about Johnson appears unchanged. He still walks with the same slow, swaggering gait and still sends golf balls hurtling through the air with that signature wrist bend. Johnson hasn’t won on LIV in two years and hasn’t won a major in almost six.
Time just keeps moving. One day, everything is in the palm of your hand. Next, you’re trying to stop the sand from slipping through your fingers.
Spieth and Johnson chatted while leaving the first tee as their walk in Philadelphia began. Spieth is still the same in that regard. He talks; talks to himself, to his caddie Michael Greller, to his playing partner. The dialogue rarely stops. When he raced an 11-foot birdie putt past the hole at No. 6, Spieth walked over to Greller and asked, “How did that miss?” When they finished the hole, he stayed to survey the break. “Wow,” he exclaimed to himself. When he lost a tee shot left off No. 10, he walked off muttering, “Come on, Jordan.”
Johnson remains stoic. When he hooked his tee shot left off No. 6, all he offered was a brief, “Oh,” before a “Fore!” He wandered into the crowd, hacked his approach onto the green and wandered back amongst them toward the rope line, fans staring at him like a golf eclipse that’s rarely seen on major weekends nowadays. He missed a birdie putt low at No. 7 and gave his caddie a brief point that it moved right — no dialogue needed.
They are both the same as always, just weathered by the years.
Both made birdie at the par-5 ninth. A small collection of back-nine circles arrived early in the afternoon, but, for the most part, Spieth and Johnson spent Saturday sandwiched by waves of cascading roars created by those looking to make the most of the time they have left (Justin Rose) and those looking to cement their place in it (Rory McIlroy).
Meanwhile, Spieth and Johnson trudged along, like they were moving through molasses while trying to catch a car that had sped away.
“It’s very frustrating,” Spieth, who shot even-par 70, told GOLF after the round. “Tomorrow there is going to be less wind so you’re not going to be able to make up as much ground without going super low. Today was the day to do it and I just really haven’t been able to figure out these greens.”
Spieth still feels “close.” He has driven it great this week. He remains one of golf’s great artists. The shot he hit into No. 11 on Friday — “a low, punch-draw 60-degree,” Spieth recalled — is a reminder that he can conjure magic few are capable of. It’s almost all there.
And yet, there’s something still missing.
“Scoring comes down to making putts,” he said. “It’s scoring inside of 150 yards and making putts. I feel like I’ve hit some pretty good shots from in that range and have had plenty of looks, and if my Strokes Gained: Putting was the same as anyone in the top 10 in the field right now, I’d probably be leading.
“Having said that, I feel like I came in here saying that this is my best chance I have felt in seven or eight years to walk up and win a major championship. If I stay on that path, it should feel easier and easier. I had an off putting week at Augusta, too. I’ve had some good ones. Going to try and have a good one tomorrow and make up for all of it.”
Spieth stood next to the stairs leading to the Aronimink clubhouse. He was five shots back at the time and tied for 45th place. He is one of golf’s great thinkers, and when confronted with the question of time and how it has changed him, he looked off for a second.
“Of course, I think about it,” he said. “Both [on course and off] I’m very different. I’ve changed a lot.”
Spieth then pivoted away from golf and talked about his wife and kids and how they have made “everything better.” Different can be good. The blessings of life often change as we do, as priorities shift. As Spieth spoke, Johnson quietly sauntered past and headed toward his car.
Spieth strolled up the stairs toward the clubhouse, off in the direction of the 18th green where, minutes earlier, he and Johnson had finished. This one didn’t end in heartbreak or ecstasy or grand meaning. Just with questions about time and where it all had gone.
