How Jordan Spieth became the world’s hottest golfer

ST. ANDREWS, Scotland – Jordan Spieth lives by a simple rule: Aim small, miss small.

It’s the maxim of his coach, Cameron McCormick, and it embodies a philosophical outlook that’s made Spieth the world’s hottest golfer. “Aim small, miss small” means pick the tightest possible target, and even if you miss that target, you’re still going to be very close to your goal.

Spieth hasn’t missed much lately. He comes into this week’s British Open having won the last two majors, the Masters and the U.S. Open. He has the chance to do something no one but Ben Hogan has ever done: win all four majors in one season. Tiger Woods, Jack Nicklaus, Arnold Palmer … all three won the first two in a season, and all three failed to close the deal on a Grand Slam in the United Kingdom.

Could Spieth win where the greatest golfers in history failed? Everything’s setting up his way. Rory McIlroy, the only player in the world ranked higher than Spieth, isn’t here thanks to a poorly-timed soccer injury he suffered a week ago. The greens at St. Andrews, which usually play with all the subtlety of a parking lot, are now soft and manageable. Spieth himself enters the week with the momentum of an avalanche and the psychological edge of a ’90s-era Michael Jordan.

Aim small, miss small. “The more pressure you feel in the heat of the moment, the smaller of a target that you can pick, your misses are going to be smaller,” Spieth said. “It’s easy for your mind to just see a fairway and have your mind wander to ‘How can I just hit this fairway?'” Spieth takes the opposite approach — aiming at a specific branch on a specific tree, say — and usually ends up either where he wants to be or within easy reach of it.

The relentless nature of that approach, either leading the field or lurking over the shoulders of those who do, gives Spieth a threatening edge he otherwise wouldn’t have. “I don’t look like an intimidating person,” he laughed Wednesday morning, “but we find a way to get it in the hole.”

It’s true, he doesn’t have the overwhelming power of an in-his-prime Tiger or the proud strut of a leaderboard-topping McIlroy. What Spieth does have is the ability to break down every problem into its component parts, and then solve each of those parts in turn, more efficiently and effectively than anyone else on the course. Break the course into 18 holes, break the holes into shots, break the shots into targets, and take dead aim at those targets.

Combine that with the fact that he’s now got major-winning experience — “feels,” he calls them, like he’s talking about the emotional hammers in “The Fault in Our Stars” — and Spieth is the most dangerous golfer in the field. “This is a major and emotions are heightened,” he said. “That means wearing them out with greens and wearing [opponents] out with mid-range putting, which is really my strength.”

In a year which saw the first Triple Crown winner in four decades and could see the first women’s tennis Grand Slam winner since 1988, why couldn’t Spieth sweep all four majors? It’s possible, even probable, but true to his nature, Spieth isn’t looking that far forward or, for that matter, backward.

“When I step on the tee Thursday, I don’t look as this as trying to win three [majors] in a row,” he said. “I look at this as trying to win The Open Championship at a very special place.” Aim small, miss small. He may not win on Sunday, but he’ll likely be in the conversation at the end of the day.

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Jay Busbee is a writer for Yahoo Sports. Contact him at jay.busbee@yahoo.com or find him on Twitter.

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