Hlas: Jordan Spieth will soon be in our Midwest midst

Number 1 on the list of those who gained the most from Jordan Spieth's U.S. Open championship Sunday was ... Jordan Spieth.

But not far down that list would be upcoming golf events in Cedar Rapids and the Quad Cities.

Spieth will make his second-straight appearance in the July 6 Zach Johnson Foundation Classic, the one-day fundraiser at Elmcrest Country Club. Proceeds go toward providing creative and inventive opportunities that connect Cedar Rapids students and families to community and school.

Spieth committed to return to Johnson's event after he won the Masters in April. Adding the U.S. Open triumph to that Masters win makes the 21-year-old Texan the current center of golf's universe.

Johnson tweeted this Sunday night:

Congrats to my buddy @JordanSpieth ... again. Phenomenal! Humble, fierce, classy, and a hard-worker. Ingredients = champion! Flipping 21! Wow.

Wow is right. Spieth became the first person to win the Masters and U.S. Open in the same year since Tiger Woods did it in 2002. Only four other players have ever done it.

No one has ever won golf's Grand Slam, all four major tourneys in the same year. Spieth will go after the third major of the year next month, the week after he sets sight at winning the John Deere Classic in Silvis, Ill., 99 miles from Elmcrest.

Many will question why Spieth isn't in Scotland that weekend to begin preparing for the following week's British Open at St. Andrews. Some may assume he will withdraw from the JDC to step up his preparation for the season's third major, a course he has never played competitively.

But from comments Spieth made at his press conference Sunday night after his U.S. Open win, he will again enter the Quad Cities tourney he won two years ago for his first PGA Tour victory.

'I plan to go (to the British Open) on a charter, the way I've done the last two years after the John Deere, that's the plan,” Spieth said.

The JDC charters a jet to take British Open-eligible players and their caddies to the Open site. Spieth was on those charters in 2013 and 2014.

Spieth made JDC lore in 2013 when he sank a shot from a greenside bunker at the 18th hole on Sunday for a birdie that subsequently got him into a sudden-death playoff with defending-champion Johnson and David Hearn. Spieth won the playoff on the fifth hole, and went from entering Tour events via tournament exemptions to having the next two years guaranteed as a Tour member.

His first JDC appearance was as an 18-year-old in 2012, on a sponsor's exemption. So Spieth undoubtedly feels gratitude toward the tourney.

'First and foremost,” JDC tournament chairman Clair Peterson said Monday, 'we've developed a very close relationship with Jordan and are very happy for him.

'But Jordan's making his own decisions. I think his answer at the press conference yesterday was very informative.”

Spieth was already a drawing card for the JDC, but his win Sunday makes him perhaps the biggest attraction the tournament has ever had.

'We had a lot of spectators who had already purchased tickets before any of this happened because they'd seen him since 2012 and root for him,” Peterson said. 'But there will be others who are maybe casual golf fans who will now come to see someone who has accomplished pretty historic things this year.”

Spieth is No. 2 in the World Golf Rankings, behind Rory McIlroy. Including No. 28 Johnson, only four players in the World top 50 are in the JDC's field.

The next two Tour events - the Travelers Championship and Greenbrier Classic - have 12 and 10 Top 50 players, respectively. But they don't have Spieth.

Do you think the JDC would trade fields with them? Me, neither.

l Comments: (319) 368-8840; mike.hlas@thegazette.com