By Sam Belden 

Another week at Augusta National has come and gone, and once again, the game of golf is better for it. Fans weren’t treated to the back nine drama that they’ve come to expect at the Masters, but they did witness one of the all-time greatest performances at a major championship. Jordan Spieth, the twenty-one-year-old Texan prodigy with a knack for draining mid-range birdie chances, took the green jacket in dominant fashion, matching Tiger Woods’ record for the lowest 72 hole score ever recorded at the event.

Although the tournament was still technically up for grabs until the final putt of the final hole, Spieth appeared to have it locked up before the beginning of the third round. On Thursday, he opened with a 64, just one stroke off of the record for the lowest round ever at a major. A second round 66 gave him a five-stroke lead, and a pair of 70s allowed it to more or less hold over the weekend.

Phil Mickelson and Justin Rose were the co-runners up, but neither got within two strokes of Spieth during any point of Sunday’s final round. It was a magnificent, dominant win for the ages, one that will certainly be a part of Masters lore for generations to come.

In the grand scheme of things, this victory isn’t really a surprising one. Serious golf fans have had Spieth on their radar for a while.

He has enjoyed a wildly successful amateur career, making several cuts as a teenager in PGA Tour events. Throw in his second place finish to Bubba Watson in last year’s tournament and his record of three consecutive top twos leading up to this one, and fans could have called it from a mile away. Many did. What’s truly amazing about Spieth is how complete of a golfer he looks at such a young age.

Most young players, even those with strong amateur records, have some trouble adjusting to the life of a touring golf pro. This is not the case for Spieth who did the impossible by playing his way onto the PGA Tour with no status in 2013, and broke into the top 10 of the world rankings before he was old enough to legally drink. His emergence as a fully formed, elite player was almost startling.

Now, we have the aftermath. In our midst, here lies one of the youngest Masters champions of all time, and he’s just getting started. After just nine starts in the majors, he has picked up his first victory. For some perspective, Sergio Garcia and Lee Westwood, two of the foremost European golfers of this generation, are winless in 134 major attempts.

Mickelson, who boasts five majors and is considered one of the all-time greats, didn’t pick off his first victory until he was going on 34. Unlike these and so many other stars of the game, Spieth has gotten an early start on his major tally, and he’ll have a lot of time to add to it.

Of course, all of this success means that Spieth is now on a collision course with world No. 1 Rory McIlroy. McIlroy, a Northern Irishman, hasn’t quite been himself since hoisting the trophy in Dubai back in January, but he notched his best-ever Masters finish last week, placing fourth. He and Spieth now occupy the top two spots in the world rankings, and no one’s particularly close to bumping either of them. When McIlroy made good on the considerable promise he showed as a junior and began to dominate the game, people began to wonder if anyone would step up and rival him as the game’s brightest young star.

Well, we’ve got our answer. McIlroy and Spieth are the Hogan and Snead, the Palmer and Nicklaus and the Woods and Mickelson for a new generation of golf fans. In both potential and current form, no one is at their level.

Dustin Johnson, Jason Day, Rickie Fowler, Patrick Reed and Hideki Matsuyama are young stars within shouting distance of the top two, but until one of them bags a major, McIlroy and Spieth are the ones at the forefront of professional golf’s youth movement.

Say what you will about the Masters — it’s a little tacky, too exclusive and a tad overdone — but the event has a way of identifying the best-of-the-best. That describes Jordan Spieth. After his stirring win, we can be confident that he will serve as a rival to McIlroy and as one of the premier American players for years to come.