Hyundai Tournament of Champions: Jordan Spieth lays down marker for season with 30-under win in Hawaii

How about this for a magic number? Jordan Spieth’s victory at the Hyundai Tournament of Champions in Hawaii was his seventh on the PGA Tour. It also came in the seventh week of the wrap-around season and his closing round featured seven birdies. Oh, and it was his 77th pro start.

Gratitude to Brian Wacker of the PGA Tour website for collating that spooky arrangement, which feeds readily into the idea that, in Spieth, we are dealing with a golfer of freakish quality.

Spieth closed out a tournament on Sunday night that featured PGA Tour and major winners from 2015 by eight shots on a colossal 30 under par, one shy of Ernie Els’ course record. Second-placed Patrick Reed carded only one bogey in what was a windy week, rattled off four rounds in the sixties and still got whupped, as they say in Texas.

Spieth finished 10 shots clear of Players’ champion Rickie Fowler, and 15 ahead of world No 2 Jason Day, world No 4 Bubba Watson and eternal major bridesmaid Dustin Johnson. This was a 32-man field steeped in pedigree, but none was in the class of the remarkable 22-year-old, who put the fear of Zeus into his rivals with putting that he claims is already Masters-ready.

“My putting feels like it is 100 per cent ready for major championships,” said Spieth. “I can sit here and say that my putting certainly is ready for the Masters to be next week.”

So there you have it, the best putter in the world sending a shiver through the golfing firmament.

Spieth’s next engagement, nine days hence, sees him take on Rory McIlroy in Abu Dhabi, where the world No 3 makes his first start of the year. Rust will be no excuse after Spieth’s coruscating display straight out of the box.

McIlroy will road-test for the first time in competition the lasered eyes that have given him back 20/20 vision and, he hopes, strengthened the one area of his game that might be described as modest: his putting.

Spieth acknowledges a technical deficit to McIlroy on the tee that can never be erased, but that is of no consequence if you lead the “shots gained putting” stats on tour.

Spieth’s back-to-back majors at the start of last summer transformed the landscape and forced even McIlroy to accept the post-Tiger Woods future is not his alone to shape. Indeed, the Woods comparisons gain momentum with each victory. Spieth and Woods share the distinction of winning seven times before the age of 23, though Woods had notched 18 in his first 77 starts.

Wisely, Spieth is distancing himself from the idea that he is Woodsesque, at least for now. “I just think it’s premature, but I’ll say that probably my entire career,” he said. “I know what he did. I just find it hard to believe it can be matched. I know we’re in a position now where we’re maybe ahead of the curve age-wise. But, boy, it would be hard to believe I could be compared to him the entire course of a career.”