British Open 2017: 5 things we learned

1. Jordan Spieth has leveled up

With the win at the 2017 British Open, the obvious narratives for Jordan Spieth are being beaten to death. He’s a PGA Championship win away from the career grand-slam. Can he keep up this winning pace to stay on-par with Tiger Woods and Jack Nicklaus? Spieth is back and ready to dominate. However, let’s not look past the fact that he clearly turned a corner at Royal Birkdale on Sunday.

Few golf fans will forget Spieth’s monumental collapse in the 2016 Masters. With a five-shot lead through 63 holes, it looked like it was in the bag for back-to-back Green Jackets. Instead, Spieth bogeyed Nos. 10 and 11, then completely dismantled with a quadruple bogey on the 12th hole. He’s always been susceptible to the errant shot, but never had he collapsed in that manner.

Obviously Spieth had won on the PGA Tour since then, but not in a major. It seemed to be a weight hanging on his shoulders, and that all looked like it was coming to a head on No. 13. Instead, he made an exceptionally savvy play with the rules to get a favorable drop and pulled off one of the most incredible bogeys you’ll ever see. That fueled him down the stretch as he got hot again to close out the win.

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The point of all that is that Spieth took a noticeable step forward in that. Getting past that propensity to get too serious and into his own head is a massive leap for a young golfer with his talent level. Now that he’s captured the Claret Jug, it could be back to dominance for the Texan.