John Wood has joked that he was more annoyed at the putts Jordan Spieth was holing during the final round of the 2017 Open Championship than how long he took to hit from the practice ground while playing the 13th hole.
The previous Open Championship hosted at Royal Birkdale will be most remembered for the duel between Spieth and Matt Kuchar, particularly on the back nine.
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Kuchar had begun the day three shots back of his countryman. However, they were level heading to the 10th tee. Kuchar actually took the lead for the first time after the 13th hole.
How Matt Kuchar reacted to Jordan Spieth hitting from the range during the 2017 Open Championship
That 13th hole saw Spieth take around half an hour to hit his approach after taking a drop due to an unplayable lie. Many will remember the sight of Spieth working out that he could hit from the range.
He ended up making an incredible bogey to fall one shot behind Kuchar.
Wood was on Kuchar’s bag that day in Southport. And speaking on 5 Clubs this week, he provided an insight into how difficult it was for the veteran.
“There’s quite a few things I remember about it. The first thing is I think when you’re watching somebody hit, these guys especially, they’re so good, on the tee shot, you’re looking at a window for the ball to come out in and I remember Kuch had already hit, and I looked at the window and I saw no golf ball. I had no idea where it went. And then I heard Jordan start yelling fore right, and saw it end up on that hill,” he said.
“At first, we didn’t know if it was going to be easy to find, but apparently they found it fairly quickly, but it was obviously a shot he wasn’t going to be able to play. So Kuch hit a good drive there, we went up, and even though we were closer, Kuch decided I’m going to go ahead and hit just because he knew it was going to be a long time.
“Jordan and Michael just disappeared, so we didn’t know what they were doing until we started looking at a monitor they had up on the left side of that fairway. So we were just sitting with one of the officials in the fairway, just taking it all in, trying to figure out where he was, what he was going to have.
“It wasn’t as nerve-wracking or as crazy as you think. Kuch had a great attitude about it. He wasn’t frustrated, and it was just one of those things, there’s nothing you could do about it. So we just waited. And then when you saw him take a drop and he was on the driving range, we kind of looked at each other like, ‘wow, that’s not out of bounds, okay’.
“We saw him swing, didn’t have any idea where the ball was, because we were still far away, we kind of gazed up at the green and saw it land some 25, 30 yards short of the green in a pretty good spot, and then we went up.”
How Jordan Spieth behaved after the controversy at Royal Birkdale
It surely helped Kuchar stay calm that it was quite clear that he was going to take the lead on that particular hole. The only question was how much of an advantage he would head to 14 with.
Incredibly, the situation seemed to inspire Spieth. He played the next four holes in five under par to put himself back on track and on course to lift the Claret Jug.
Despite the intensity that inevitably arises during a duel between two players desperately chasing a major, Wood explained that Spieth could not have demonstrated more class after all of the issues on the 13th hole.
“Jordan was great about the whole situation. Before he got up there and hit his pitch shot, before he even marked his ball, he came right up to Kuch and said, ‘hey Kuch, I apologise, I really didn’t mean for it to happen like that, there’s nothing I could do’. And Kuch of course, is so easy going, he said don’t worry about it at all. And we just moved on,” he said.
“The funny thing I remember about it most is we took the lead for the first time by ourselves on Sunday. We had a one-shot lead going into the next hole, and it was weird because we took the lead for the first time, but it almost felt like he gained the momentum by making just a five. It looked like it could have been six, seven. It could have been anything.
“Kuch played the next four holes, had a one shot lead, played the next four holes at two under and we were trailing. So it was just one of those weird situations where Kuch didn’t lose that golf tournament. Jordan just took it at the end. At any major, five to play with a one shot and you go two under for the next four, you think I’ve got a pretty good chance to win, but Jordan just did Jordan things.
“The other thing that I remember was a couple of holes later, Jordan leaned over on a tee shot and whispered in my ear, ‘Woody, I’m sorry about that back on 13. I took so long, I didn’t mean to’. I said, ‘Jordan, you don’t need to apologise about that, you need to apologise for the 40-footers you just made’.”
It would be interesting to know how Kuchar now reflects on that incident. It remains the only time that he has finished second in a major championship. And at 48, it is hard to imagine that he will get another opportunity to contend at one of the four biggest events of the year.
Spieth, meanwhile, returns to Birkdale hoping to ignite his career once again. It is incredible that he has not won another major since The Open in 2017.
In fact, Spieth is now looking to finish in the top 10 in a major for the first time since The Masters in 2023.
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