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Tiger Woods’ interesting comment on Jordan Spieth’s record-trying Masters win

By Andrew Ross

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Tiger Woods wants to remind everyone that what he did is still the greatest Masters performance ever.

You don’t become one of the greatest athletes of all-time without knowing how to throw out some backhanded comments from time to time, and Tiger Woods has gotten pretty good at that.

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Jordan Spieth absolutely dominated the Masters over the last few days. The 21-year-old led from start to finish on his way to the green jacket, and he even set multiple Masters records in the process including the lowest score through 36 holes (130) and 54 holes (200). Unfortunately, Spieth had to settle for a bogey on the final hole of the tournament which dropped him to -18 and tied with Woods for the lowest 72-hole score (270) in Masters history. Woods’ historic round came in 1997 when he was also only 21 years old, but he remains the youngest winner in Masters history by about five months.

Woods was asked about Spieth’s performance, of course, and Woods had some pretty intriguing words: “With the length of the golf course, I didn’t think that people would be getting that low, but they kept it soft all week. And that’s something that the older guys in the clubhouse and in the Champions Locker Room were all talking about, that we haven’t seen it that soft. It wasn’t springy until today.”

First and foremost, you can’t take this the wrong way. This isn’t Woods taking a shot at anyone or being an unreasonable jerk, Woods did have this to say about Spieth: “I think it’s fantastic. He’s doing all those things he needs to do. . . . He’s one of those guys that like Rory, can go off and make bunches of birdies in a row.”

What Woods is really doing is reminding everyone that what Spieth did isn’t comparable to his performance many years ago.

Sure, they both had the same score, but what about the rest of the field? People never talk about being 18-under when discussing Woods’ performance from the 1997 Masters, but what they do talk about is how he won by an incredible 12 stokes. Not only did Woods win by 12 strokes at 18-under, but 2-under was good enough to get in the top 10 and only 16 total golfers were below par.

What does this say? This says that the course was playing insanely difficult and was beating up everyone that wasn’t named Tiger Woods. His performance was so historic because it was him and then….well, nobody at all.

This isn’t meant to take anything away from Spieth, what he did was amazing, but it shouldn’t be compared to Woods’ round. Spieth was 18-under, but there were also two other players at 14-under and you had to be at least 8-under just to get in the top 10. The conditions were perfect for golfers at the 2015 Masters, and they took full advantage of it. Spieth would have had to do something crazy like shoot 23-under to be compared to Woods’ round.

Hopefully Spieth can continue the comparisons to Woods since it is good for golf to have such a dominant player. The major win moved Spieth to number two of the world golf rankings (only trailing Rory McIlroy). It’s always interesting to see how people handle the pressure of being on top, and we are about to see how Spieth will handle it. It would be nice to see him thrive in the spotlight as he did over the past few days.

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