A number of young golfers have been eyed as the next tiger — Rory McIlroy, for one, who failed to make the cut on Friday. Just as golf watchers love to hunt for the next Tiger, they also love to reject the very quest as nonsense.
“Anointing Spieth as the next anything in golf is premature at best and abject folly at worst,” Pennington says.
Mark Herrmann of Newsday agrees. “Being the first and only Jordan Spieth is plenty,” he writes.
Even the teenage phenom Guldahl, who went on in his 20s to win the Masters and two consecutive U.S. Opens, gave up the tour for lack of interest, and you’ve likely never heard of him.
One way Spieth is not like the young Woods, says the Golf Channel’s Joe Posnanski, is his demeanor. Where Woods was all intensity and focus — “He was Alexander the Great, and he came to get what he believed was rightfully his” Spieth is “quirky and funny and respectful and agreeable.”
“Jordan Spieth seems entirely comfortable being Jordan Spieth,” Posnanski says.