Zach Johnson wins Open after three-way playoff

He had two in the four-hole playoff. By the end of the season Spieth is likely to be pulling in $5 million to $10 million in annual endorsements, said Matt Delzell, managing director of The Marketing Arm, who negotiates such endorsement deals.

Zach Johnson won his second major title on Monday evening, securing the 2015 Open Championship with a play-off win over Louis Oosthuizen and Marc Leishman.

Also on 11 under were fellow amateurs Ashley Chesters of Britain and Jordan Niebrugge of the U.S, through 14 and five holes respectively. But his putting game didn’t help him late, and he bogeyed 17 before hooking his drive left on 18.

Johnson came in as a 100-to-1 longshot, which translates as “under the radar”.

After receiving the Claret Jug the 39-year old American said: “I am fairly speechless right now”.

Spieth said: “I don’t know how many guys have done three majors in a year”. Granted, as a professional athlete and as a golfer I’m going to relish this. I’m grateful for that. I don’t want to place third tomorrow.

“I didn’t think I was going to get the driver that far up there and it was an awkward little spot but I did well, (but) misread the putt”. “It’s not my legacy”. He is a really good friend of mine. He had chances. “Give it time so I can just sit down and look at what the positives were and move on from there and just try and get better”.

On the sixth hole, Oosthuizen rolled in a putt of 20 feet to pull within one shot.

The four-putt? He started by putting off the green from about 100 feet away.

“I hit my first putt off the green and there’s absolutely no reason to do that”.

Not since Tiger Woods’ chances evaporated in a rain-blown 81 in the third round at Muirfield in 2002 had a player had a shot at three straight majors.

Surely there would be more magic to come and Spieth would enter the record books as the first player to win his first three majors of the year since Ben Hogan did it 62 years ago. “Thankfully, I made a few”. I don’t know if it’s ever really beeping on me.

The victor, meanwhile, was not the Johnson who was seen as the major threat to stop Spieth’s Slam. Over the same stretch, runners-up Marc Leishman and Louis Oosthuizen were both 13-under, while Grand-Slam-also-ran Jordan Spieth posted 16-under. Oosthuizen was level par and Leishman two over. Johnson’s wife Kim was there to embrace him in his moment of triumph by the 18th as well as Jordan Spieth, a class act on and off the course. When you hit a bad shot there’s no real point getting frustrated about it.

Oosthuizen appeared to be out of contention until he grittily holed a 15-foot par-saving effort at the 17th and chipped to four feet at the 18th before rolling in his birdie putt to join Johnson and Leishman in the playoff. I’ve had the experience in 2012 at Augusta. It was an emotional win for Johnson, who choked back tears while trying to answer media questions. “When we made the turn on 12, St Andrews showed its teeth”.

“It’s never nice to lose a playoff”. “But yeah, I’ll take a lot out of this week”.

“I was really motivated to win this championship this week”.

It was quite a week at St. Andrews as we saw a thriller at this course for the first time since John Daly won in a playoff in 1995. I’ve said it a thousand times.