Jordan Spieth and the Sports Summer We Almost Had

In the end, we did not get the Summer of Slam. Serena Williams going for the tennis Grand Slam, Jordan Spieth the golf Grand Slam, and American Pharaoh the Triple Crown of horse racing. All in one summer. It was real. It was fun.

It was too much.

"If you had wanted to bet on that summer of slams, the odds would have been about 10,000-to-1,'' says Benjamin Eckstein, a nationally syndicated oddsmaker in Vegas and the owner of America's Line. "Something stupidly ridiculous. And no one would have even taken that bet.

"It would have been about the same as the odds on the Dalai Lama playing a round of golf with the president of China. Or of Charles Barkley winning any golf tournament.''

Well, we can dream, anyway. But it ended Monday when Jordan Spieth finished one shot from finishing tied for the lead in the British Open and advancing to a four-hole playoff. After having won the Masters and the U.S. Open, he needed to win the British and then the PGA Championship next month for golf's first modern-day major sweep.

Instead, the winner Monday was—well, not Spieth. Officially in the Summer of Slam, the winner was: Some Other Guy.

It was such an incredible opportunity for golf, suffering a years-long funk from Tiger Woods' fall. Spieth is not Woods. I've said that a few times recently and have meant it in a negative way, almost as an insult, because Speith will never have Woods' larger social meaning nor create as much excitement.

An understated young champion won't sell as well as Woods did, either. Spieth had no reaction when he won the U.S. Open, because victory came when Dustin Johnson choked on a short putt on the final hole. Spieth didn't fist pump, didn't encourage the gallery to roar, because he didn't want to rub it in to Johnson, not after winning like that.

However, it became clear Monday that not being Woods actually can be a good thing on the course. A compliment, not an insult. Spieth doesn't hit it farther than everyone else, doesn't wow you the way Woods did. He doesn't have the big personality or massive marketing campaign behind him, either. There's just something calm and stable about him, despite his fierce competitiveness.

On Monday, Spieth didn't wear a bright red winner shirt, the way Woods once did during final rounds. He four-putted for a double-bogey on the 8th hole, and that left him on the edge. One more mistake would finish him off. Of course, Spieth made birdies of each of the next two holes. On the 16th hole, he sank a super-long putt for another birdie and a tie for the lead.

Then he missed a putt on 17—one more mistake—and that was about it.

Through Spieth's good-but-not-good enough performance, you could see just how hard it is to win a Grand Slam. One little mistake here or there and you're done. No one has run the table in golf since the current four majors were in place in 1934. In tennis, men's and women's, there have been a total of six Grand Slam winners, with Steffi Graf doing it most recently in 1988. In horse racing, we've had 12 Triple Crown winners.

Add them all up, between the three sports, and you have a total of 18 champions. We could have had three more this summer.

Barring injury, Williams will be favored to win a Grand Slam at U.S. Open, though I'm not sure that's going to spark the sport. She has already been great for more than a decade: a major sweep would be confirmation, not a coronation like it would have been for Spieth. Golf's final major, the PGA Championship, could now be dominated by the story of Woods' ongoing floundering. American Pharoah already won horse racing's Triple Crown, the first one since 1978—has anyone thought about him or race horses since? Horse racing may be beyond saving.

But like I said, this was a missed opportunity for golf. And for sports. A Summer of Slam would have been special. In some ways, it already was. Together, Spieth, Williams and American Pharaoh—with an assist from the U.S. women's national soccer team—changed the sports narrative the last few months. Instead of talking about DeflateGate, concussions and domestic violence, fans were able to just take joy in watching greatness.

Still, those odds. Imagine coming through on 10,000-to-1 shot. According to CNN.com, the National Weather Service puts the odds of being struck by lightning at 12,000-to-1. A spokesperson for William Hill oddsmakers reportedly put the odds of finding proof that the Loch Ness Monster exists at just 250-to-1.

The temptation is to look at the bigger meaning of these things and try to figure out why we came so close this year. The truth is, it's just a fluke. There is no bigger reason. Right athletes, right time, a lot of luck, and almost no fatal mistakes. Almost.

Spieth is a cerebral golfer. He plays the odds. As an extensive ESPN profile put it, "he believes success is a function of numbers and the laws that govern them." His goal for Monday? A 4-under for the round. He hit it, and missed the playoff anyway, because as he said afterward, "Going out today, I didn't think three guys would get to 15 under in these conditions."

NBCNews.com once listed the odds of getting hit by a car while crossing a street at 701-to-1. And 500-to-1 for being born with an extra finger or toe. When last season ended, the Chicago Cubs, who haven't won a World Series since 1908, were listed at just 40-to-1 to win it all this year.

"There's a huge bookmaker in Ireland, where it's legal to bet, called Paddypower,'' Eckstein says. "They take a lot of exotic bets, like Elvis is still alive, 8,000-to-1.''

I looked Paddypower up. They put the odds at 1,000-to-1 at the next U.S. President being …

Kim Kardashian.

In other words, her chances were 10 times better than a successful Summer of Slam. Maybe Spieth is right. Maybe numbers govern everything, except when three guys get to 15 under in trying conditions.

It was fun while it lasted, though.