PEBBLE BEACH, Calif. – After surviving a high-wire act on the edge of a cliff during Saturday’s third round of the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am, saying the shot he hit with a 70-foot drop just a foot away was the most terrifying he has ever taken, Jordan Spieth took a much safer route Sunday around the sparkling gem known as Pebble Beach.
It was a journey just as exhilarating, despite the absence of that life-or-death possibility from the day before.
But one that ended up on the deflating side.
To the delight of the spectators, Spieth was standing on the 15th tee with a two-shot lead despite burning the edge of the cup on birdie putts on three, 11 and 14. He scrambled for par on the 16th but then found the bunker on the par-3 17th and missed a par putt from 5 feet.
Meanwhile, Tom Hoge was making three birdies in four holes behind him to storm to his first PGA Tour title. The comeback by Hoge, who finished second two weeks ago in the American Express, denied Spieth his second title in the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am.
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Hoge, who took the lead with a first-round 63 at Pebble Beach, closed with a 68 on Sunday to finish at 19 under. Spieth, the 2017 winner at Pebble, finished with a 3-under 69, two shots behind Hoge. Spieth has six top 10s and nine top 25s in his 10 starts here.
“I’ll look back and kick myself for not winning this tournament, just having the lead and looking back at where the pins were on the last four holes,” said Spieth, who missed the cut last week in San Diego. “But if you told me I would have the lead on Sunday on the last Thursday I would have said I’ll take that.
“So played well, tempo got a little off on the driver as kind of nerves were up and such. I’ve driven the ball really well the whole week, and just kind of started missing some contact. So I’ll probably dissect that a little bit into next week and try and improve.”
Jordan Spieth plays a shot from under the tree on the 18th fairway during the final round of the 2022 AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am at Pebble Beach Golf Links. (Photo: Bill Streicher-USA TODAY Sports)
It was quite a week for Spieth, who continues to deal with a bacterial infection in his stomach. And he fell 11 shots behind through the halfway mark but then shot his career-best at Pebble Beach in the third round, a 63 that got him within one shot of the 54-hole lead.
He tied for the lead with a birdie from six feet on the 12th on Sunday and then took the outright lead with a birdie from 12 feet on the 13th.
But he didn’t birdie either of the par-5s coming in.
“I feel almost a 100 percent, but I still can’t really keep a whole lot down,” Spieth said. “It’s about half of what it was. But I’m down some weight and all that stuff but I didn’t feel it affected any performance whatsoever.
“I felt like I burned a lot of edges my last few months and yesterday they started to fall, and today I made some nice putts as well. So I think I’m in a lot better position, but I think still got a little ways to go.”
And he can’t believe he didn’t birdie the 17th.
“It was my best swing of the week,” he said. “When I struck it I thought it was all over it. I hit the dead center of the face. It was on the line where it would have actually not only bounced towards the hole it would have then fed left. In the air I was thinking this might lip out. And it hits the lip and goes in the bunker.”
But this tournament will forever be known for his adventure on the edge of the cliff on the eighth hole in Saturday’s third round.
“I just saw the blimp shot from overhead and it really bothered me,” Spieth said after the third round of a shot he hit on the par-4 eighth hole that had hearts racing.
His tee shot on the uphill came perilously close to going over the cliff, the ball winding up about three to four feet from the edge. Spieth spurned his caddie’s wishes to take a drop away from the danger and elected to go for the green.
"This is downright terrifying right now."
This shot from Jordan Spieth was quite the situation.
pic.twitter.com/sq04R96GXQ
— GOLFonCBS (@GOLFonCBS) February 5, 2022
But his stance over the ball had people shaking.
His left foot was about one foot from the edge of the feet. One bad slip, or one awkward swing, could have sent him 70 feet to the bottom of the cliff.
But he pulled off the shot and made par.
“I didn’t realize the severity until I got up to it,” said Spieth, who basically tiptoed up to the ball. “Michael (Greller, his caddie) hated it. He tried to talk me out of it three times. I don’t blame him, looking back.
“(Greller) said that if that were to happen again he’ll walk up, grab my ball and throw it in the water, so that I can’t hit it.
The two hugged after Spieth made his par putt.
And last night, Spieth had some explaining to do to his parents and his wife, Annie, who was with the couple’s newborn son, Sammy, who was attending his first tournament.
“It was fine,” Spieth said. “I mean, they were kind of just more asking about it than anything else. I think at one point, Annie said, ‘You know, it’s OK, it’s just golf, you don’t have to do that.’ It was almost like she was kind of like relieved more than anything else, I think, so anyway.
“They were just asking questions about it because it was maybe hard to tell how stable it was. And they didn’t like what I had to say, I don’t think, but like I was just saying I think it was more of a relief feeling and I was asking where they were and they were like my mom and Annie couldn’t watch and my dad was just like, ‘What’s going on.’
“Looking back I just never had a situation where it was like a life and death scenario on the golf course, so I think it was just kind of weird in that setting. But I don’t expect to have any more of those any time soon.”