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Spieth wins Tour Championship

22-year-old cashes in with $10 million bonus this year

ATLANTA — Jordan Spieth didn’t need the Tour Championship, the FedEx Cup or an extra $10 million to prove anything.

He just played that way.

No matter what happened Sunday at East Lake, his highlight was always going to be the green jacket he won at the Masters with a record-tying score. The U.S. Open title he won at Chambers Bay only made it better. His bid for the Grand Slam, his run through the majors and his awards made this a season to remember.

And then the 22-year-old Texan put on a finishing touch that made it all the more sweeter — and richer.

“Incredible,” Spieth said after closing with a 1-under 69 for a four-shot victory in the Tour Championship.

This is the kid Ben Crenshaw met as a teenager and said later, upon looking in his eyes, that he thought he was looking at Wyatt Earp. Imagine how Henrik Stenson felt when Spieth dropped in one big putt after another. In the end, the hard-luck Swede could only smile.

“Eleven was the dagger,” Spieth said.

That was the par-3 11th, the biggest turning point in the final round. Spieth had a two-shot lead and hit a 5-iron heavy. “Just get to the green,” he moaned, and when he got there it wasn’t hard to size up the score. He was 45 feet away. Stenson was looking at just over a 3-footer.

And yet, Spieth rolled in the long putt for birdie to keep his two-shot lead. Stenson made bogey on the next hole, Spieth rolled in par putts of 8 feet on the 15th and 16th, and when his drive down the 17th fairway — a bunker right, the lake on the left — hit the fairway, Stenson said he “knew it was over.”

“Whenever he had to make a putt, he did it,” said Stenson, a runner-up for the third time in the FedEx Cup playoffs this year. “Very well-deserving champion. He’s hard to beat on the greens, we know that. And (I) just couldn’t keep pace with him.”

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