Jordan Spieths Collapse Also Required A Great Comeback
1987U.S.Tom Watson5.48Scott Simpson0.045.44 Spieth isn’t the first golfer to experience an unceremonious meltdown on Sunday at a major championship; YouTube is littered with the bones of players snatching ignominy from the jaws of victory. That doesn’t make it any less jarring to see a player as good as Spieth, leading by 5 midway through the Masters’ final round, fresh off of one of the greatest seasons at the majors in modern history last year, fall apart in such spectacular fashion. And that he was beaten by Danny Willett, who had just one career top-10 finish at a major before this week, made Spieth’s defeat all the more stunning.In measuring Spieth’s performance in majors last year, I used “major shares,” a statistic that estimates how many majors a player would have been expected to win given his scoring relative to the field average in past majors. Fractional “shares” of wins accumulate over time for good players; the number is nailed right around zero for the also-rans. Going into the Masters, Spieth had 1.48 career major shares,1A few notes, since I tweaked the methodology a bit since last season: Instead of using z-scores, I’m now basing major shares on a player’s strokes above the field average in a tournament. (Research by Daniel Myers shows that converting those to z-scores needlessly adds statistical noise to a player’s rating.) I also listed two versions of major shares last season — one that adjusts for other performances in the field, one that does not — and I’ve averaged those together here. the 10th-most of any active player; Willett, on the other hand, had 0.01 major shares. That difference, 1.47 major shares, was the 17th-biggest disparity in résumés between a major’s third-round leader and the player who eventually overtook him since 1958.2Out of the 139 instances in that span where the leader after three rounds didn’t go on to win the major. In other words, there have been less likely candidates to come from behind, but not many. STROKES GAINED AGAINST FIELD 1997Tiger Woods+3.7+5.8+7.2+4.2+11.5+21.0 1977BritishJack Nicklaus12.50Tom Watson0.8511.65 2010Phil Mickelson+3.9+1.5+5.6+4.9+10.5+16.0 1985Bernhard Langer+1.2-1.3+6.0+4.8+10.8+10.6 STROKES GAINED AGAINST FIELD 1978PGATom Watson1.78John Mahaffey0.531.25 YEARPLAYERR1R2R3R4WEEKENDTOTAL 1978Gary Player+1.2-0.4+3.1+8.2+11.3+12.1 YEARPLAYERR1R2R3R4WEEKENDTOTAL Considering Spieth’s immense potential, the difference between the two golfers would likely have been even higher if Willett had pulled this upset later in Spieth’s career. Spieth is no Tiger Woods, but before Sunday, he’d developed a reputation for steadiness, particularly in majors. After he birdied the ninth hole on Sunday to go up 5 strokes, a third major — and second Green Jacket — in the span of 12 months seemed imminent. (Ken Pomeroy — who maintains a golf win probability feed on Twitter in addition to his indispensable college basketball stats site — gave Spieth a 92 percent chance of winning at that point.) Then, a pair of bogeys to give a few strokes back. Then, quadruple-bogey.But epic collapses such as Spieth’s are often accompanied by incredible comebacks. And for all the water-cooler chatter about Spieth’s disastrous final trip through Augusta’s back nine, Willett also had to play tremendous golf over the weekend, particularly on Sunday. In the final 36 holes of the tournament, Willett outplayed the field average by 9.4 strokes, the ninth-best weekend enjoyed by any Masters winner since 1958. And 5.7 of those strokes were gained against the field in Round 4 alone, representing the eighth-best final round performance by a winner since ’58. 2016Danny Willett+2.3-0.3+3.7+5.7+9.4+11.5 1995U.S.Greg Norman3.23Corey Pavin0.242.99 1989MastersBen Crenshaw2.09Nick Faldo0.851.24 2009PGATiger Woods10.85Y.E. Yang0.0010.85 2011Charl Schwartzel+2.0-0.5+4.1+5.7+9.8+11.3 2013U.S.Phil Mickelson4.58Justin Rose0.244.34 1994Jose Maria Olazabal-0.8+5.0+5.4+4.9+10.3+14.5 2008BritishGreg Norman3.45P. Harrington0.343.12 1995Ben Crenshaw+0.7+3.5+2.3+5.3+7.7+11.9 1986Jack Nicklaus-0.6+1.3+2.0+7.0+9.0+9.7 1965Jack Nicklaus+4.1+2.9+9.1+4.6+13.7+20.7 YEARMAJORPLAYERMAJOR SHARESPLAYERMAJOR SHARESDIFF 2016MastersJordan Spieth1.48Danny Willett0.011.47 LEADER THROUGH 3 RDSEVENTUAL WINNER SourceS: ESPN, Yahoo 1990MastersRaymond Floyd2.66Nick Faldo1.051.61 Best weekend performances at Augusta, 1958-2016 2016Danny Willett+2.3-0.3+3.7+5.7+9.4+11.5 1959Art Wall+0.8-1.6+1.8+7.4+9.2+8.4 1990Nick Faldo+1.1+0.9+6.6+4.2+10.8+12.8 1971MastersJack Nicklaus7.29Charles Coody0.097.20 1967Gay Brewer+0.6+5.1+1.7+7.2+8.9+14.6 1996Nick Faldo+2.1+4.8+0.8+6.7+7.5+14.3 1993PGAGreg Norman2.92Paul Azinger0.482.43 1973Tommy Aaron+6.0-0.5+0.2+6.1+6.3+11.8 Biggest major upsets since 1958 Few sports offer as much potential for dramatic, heartbreaking collapse as golf. Jordan Spieth learned as much on Sunday: 2009BritishTom Watson5.98Stewart Cink0.375.61 1984BritishTom Watson5.33Seve Ballesteros2.053.28 1989Nick Faldo+5.3+1.3-2.9+6.7+3.8+10.3 1985MastersRaymond Floyd2.22Bernhard Langer0.251.97 1987MastersBen Crenshaw1.84Larry Mize0.021.81 1983U.S.Tom Watson4.44Larry Nelson0.703.73 1986PGAGreg Norman1.60Bob Tway0.021.58 1978Gary Player+1.2-0.4+3.1+8.2+11.3+12.1 2005Tiger Woods-1.2+6.2+7.2+2.2+9.4+14.4 2006U.S.Phil Mickelson3.45Geoff Ogilvy0.033.43 2011Charl Schwartzel+2.0-0.5+4.1+5.7+9.8+11.3 2012U.S.Jim Furyk1.25Webb Simpson0.001.25 Best Sundays at Augusta, 1958-2016 The quality (or lack thereof) with which Spieth hit the ball at the 12th hole was shocking, but Willett’s weekend charge was also pretty historic. It took a combination of the two to generate a Green Jacket ceremony this awkward: