Ed. note: We’ve heard the chanting outside our windows, at odd hours of the day and night, so here it is: the fourth of eight installments of Bamberger Briefly, PGA Championship-style. Previous installments: player-caddie relationships; Tiger’s memoir; Tour players’ grips.
A myth of the business is that the sportswriter doesn’t root and a cliché of the business, borne in truth, is that the sportswriter roots for the story. A famous example of the latter would be the 1971 Masters, won by Charlie Coody, with Johnny Miller and Jack Nicklaus finishing second. You don’t have to wonder what Dan Jenkins was thinking on that Masters Sunday afternoon.
have been rooting for Jordan Spieth since before he turned pro, and will be rooting for him this week, at the PGA Championship at Harding Park. I’m drawn to his honesty, his intelligence, his memory, the way he interacts with his family, fans, reporters, fellow players, the wacky things he does on the golf course, his light steps in deep rough.
He’s 27 and he already has three majors: the 2015 Masters, the 2015 U.S. Open and the 2017 British Open. If he wins this week, he becomes the sixth: Gene Sarazen, Ben Hogan, Gary Player, Jack Nicklaus, Tiger Woods. You may know that when Sarazen did it, there was no catchy name for the feat, but now there of course is: the career Grand Slam.
