Jordan Spieth can join golf's elite club at USPGA Championship after Open triumph

Less than three weeks from now, the new Open champion will tee-off in the USPGA Championship at Quail Hollow in Charlotte, North Carolina.

Jordan Spieth will be seeking to become only the sixth man to complete the modern career Grand Slam. Gene Sarazen, Ben Hogan, Gary Player, Jack Nicklaus and Tiger Woods are the only members of the game’s most elite club.

For now, Spieth is merely the youngest man in a 12-strong group — including the likes of Arnold Palmer, Tom Watson, Phil Mickelson, Sam Snead, Rory McIlroy and Lee Trevino — to have won three of the four majors. Not bad company for the 23-year-old Texan — he turns 24 on Thursday — who now has 11 victories on the PGA Tour following his epic three-shot win at Royal Birkdale.

Still, not much should surprise anyone when it comes to Spieth and the often remarkable way he plays the game he started at the age of two, swinging plastic clubs. Twice the US Junior champion — joining Woods as the only multiple winners of that title — the Texan was good enough to make the halfway cut in a PGA Tour event at the age of 16. After playing in the 2011 Walker Cup at Royal Aberdeen, he turned professional in 2012 and became the first teenager to win on the PGA Tour since 1931, taking the John Deere Classic.

On the 13th hole yesterday he had to play a penalty drop from the practice area following a wild drive — and somehow made a six-foot putt for just a single bogey. “That was massive,” he said — and it left him only one shot behind compatriot Matt Kuchar. Spieth played the next four holes in five under par.

And that might just be the sort of form Spieth will have to reproduce in the upcoming USPGA at the re-vamped Quail Hollow Club — because one man in particular will fancy his chances.

In 2010, McIlroy, who tied for fourth at Birkdale, recorded his maiden PGA Tour victory in what was then the Quail Hollow Championship, with a closing round of 62. Apart from 2011 he has never been outside the top 10 and won again in 2015. He likes the place.

“The course really does suit my game,” McIlroy said. “And when I’m relaxed over shots and the course sets up well for my game, that really gives my confidence a boost.”

No matter. Spieth will arrive as the man to beat.

“You can learn a lot from the way Jordan gets around a course,” said former US Open champion Geoff Ogilvy. “More than anyone, he seems to sign for one or two [strokes] less than you think he maybe should have. Every day. That’s the sign of a great player.”