I guess it is in the eye of the beholder, but I’ve always been a bit perplexed by the criticism that Spieth is boring. I can certainly see why people don’t like him- he doesn’t have an aesthetically pleasing swing, tends to play slow, “we”, the chats with Greller can be eye rolling- but to me at least he’s been in the middle of some of the more exciting tour moments over the past few seasons. He’s holed out from the bunker to both get into a playoff and win one. His Masters win was boring, but he has another one where he imploded on 12 to blow it. Last year he shot a 64 on Sunday to almost chase down Reed. His Us Open win was chaos. He bombed in a putt on 16 that looked like it would seal the deal and immediately followed that up with a double on 17 to send the tournament back into chaos. He did the same thing at the Open Championship when he kept his grand slam chase alive to the 72nd hole. Bombed in a birdie on 16, then bogeyed 17. His Open win at Birkdale was chaos. Lost a 2 shot lead, and then when it looks like he’s completely lost it, he goes birdie, eagle, birdie, birdie. I don’t know, I guess the flaws in Spieth’s game are what makes him exciting to me. You never really know what is around the corner. He could lose it completely or get on some ridiculous heater.
Yep, that's what I was trying to get at with Spieth. He elicits an emotional response, because of the way he plays and because of his flaws. It's exciting. I'm not a real big Spieth fan, probably fall more on the hate vs. love end of that spectrum, but the tournaments that he's been in the mix in have been tournaments that will be remembered for years, decades to come.
That's also what I was trying to get at with Rose. He doesn't win a lot, and the few times he's won, he hasn't been really in dogfights or forced to make a huge birdie to stay alive or win. Just like this past Sunday, he's got a multiple stroke lead, doesn't do anything spectacular, doesn't screw anything up, and wins going away. At Merion, he shot what, 70, on Sunday, and won because Phil blew up, as did everyone else around the lead.
I don't know what else to really call it, besides boring. Maybe methodical? The guy's #1 in the world, so I'm definitely not questioning his ability or his talent, I'm just talking about my opinion of him, and my opinion is that if I had a choice, coming down the back 9 on a Sunday, I'd rather see about 10 other guys at or near the top of the leaderboard than him, just because of the excitement of not knowing what will happen next. Would I rather watch Tiger try to hit a 210 yard cut through the trees because he blew his tee shot, knowing there's as much of a chance of him putting it into the drink as there is of him putting it 3 feet from the cup, or would I rather watch Rose hit another perfect drive and then throw a 175 yard 7 iron 15 feet from the cup on the "right" side of the hole? I'll take the former every time.
Now, if I was betting on someone, Rose is the kind of guy I'm betting on, but that's not what we're really talking about here.