At age 21, Jordan Spieth has won his second major and become the most celebrated player in golf. He is also halfway to one of the most difficult feats in sports, the Grand Slam. Indeed, “difficult” may be selling the challenge short. In its modern incarnation, no one has ever completed a Grand Slam in golf, and no one has come especially close.
The term comes from bridge, where the taking of all 13 tricks has been called a Grand Slam since at least the early 1800s. The first golfer said to have completed a Grand Slam was Bobby Jones in 1930, but the four tournaments he won were different from the modern set and included two amateur events.