Thirteen-year-old Jairam Hathwar is a better speller than you. In fact, he’s a better speller than almost anyone on earth, as he was the co-champion of the 2016 Scripps National Spelling Bee. Hathwar also happens to be a huge golf fan, and his favorite athlete in the sport is former Masters champion Jordan Speith.
AT&T brought the two together for a fun little golf/spelling challenge in Hathwar’s home state of New York recently, and the young spelling prodigy got the best of Speith at his own game. The contest was that the two would take turns trying to correctly spell some spelling-bee level words, and for everyone they got wrong they would have to move further away from the hole. Naturally, Hathwar went three for three in spelling while Speith got them all wrong (you should have at least gotten “zoysia,” Jordan), meaning Speith had to take the put from several feet out and Hathwar had basically a gimmie.
Even though he lost, Speith was a good sport about it afterwards, even showing Hathwar some of his tricks.
Despite the semi-embarrassing loss, at least Spieth knows how to properly spell “triskaidekaphobia” now, so he should call it a win.
