The Jordan Spieth experience at Sawgrass
Never boring, volatile Spieth battles back to find form; Stray Shots: GOAT racing
Jordan Spieth is always anything but boring (David Rosenblum/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)
Jordan Spieth comes into the Players Championship with mixed emotions.
Partly as the spurned lover, after not receiving a sponsor’s exemption into last week’s Arnold Palmer Invitational, and partly wounded animal, recovering from a surgery last August on his left wrist.
This made Thursday’s first round an attempt to make a statement that he should have gotten an exemption into the Orlando tournament. At the same time, he’s working his was back after a surgery that put him on the shelf for five months.
The birdie-eagle start in the first round at the TPC Sawgrass spoke volumes early, but the stretch of five holes at the end of his first nine holes was a jumbled mess that played out as double-bogey-bogey-eagle-bogey-birdie.
The former world No. 1, who had fallen as far as No. 85 in February, blamed his driver for the mess. But despite the volatile first nine, he preserved shooting a 2-under 70.
Spieth's high-water mark is a T4 in his first appearance in 2014, but his history has not been positive, with six missed cuts in 10 appearances.
To add a little more context, the 70 Spieth shot on Thursday was his 11th round under par in 29 career rounds at TPC sawgrass. Battling back in the Players has not been his forte, as he readily admits.
“I battled really well on my second nine,” Spieth said. “Posting 2-under when out here a lot of times for me when I’m a little off I’ve shot over par in the first round and really feel behind.”
Instead of a trampoline-type round, Spieth talked about wanting to be more boring and not so volatile with his game.
“I’m obviously very aware of what I’m doing, but, I mean, no, I feel like I’d like it to be boring,” Spieth said after his colorful card left him four shots behind leader Lucas Glover in the first round of the Players Championship.
“All the volatility was just in those first five, six holes and from there it was just almost and just close to being really good.”
He feels like he’s on the right path, but since returning, he has had rounds that could be characterized as both tedious and unpredictable.
“This time it wasn’t from making a dumb mistake, I made a bad swing,” Spieth said. “So sometimes — that’s okay.
A lot of the times when it happens it's when I'm trying to do too much, and that's when I'm aware of it, and that's the most frustrating one. Bad swing, you go learn how to make better swings.”
Spieth knows that when he is comfortable over the ball, he will stand over the ball and not try to avoid it. Instead, he will pick a target and start on that target.
With the warm weather a positive for his surgically repaired wrist, Spieth is excited about how it feels and can push it a bit, something he couldn’t do in the first few weeks after returning.
“I’m doing a really good job of battling it,” Spieth said. “I had to kind of rebuild stuff from a few months of nothing, and it wasn’t like I was coming back to something that was already great right before. I was in some really bad habits for a year and a half.”
A little Spieth tid-bit — in his career, Spieth has recorded two eagles in five tournaments on the same nine holes, twice this season.
2021 FedEx St. Jude Championship on 5 and 6 (finished T12)
2022 RBC Heritage on 2 and 5 (Won playoff)
2022 Genesis Scottish Open on 10 and 15 (T10)
2025 WM Phoenix Open on 13 and 15 (T4)
2025 Players on 11 and 16 (TBD)
Stray Shots: GOAT racing, form chasing
By Peter Kaufman
1. GOAT: Jack vs. Tiger? The topic arises again due to Brandel Chamblee recently discussing Jack v Tiger. That is all well and good, except there is a huge recency bias in the matchup.
Lest he is forgotten, there is another candidate for GOAT-dom.
He retired, as an amateur, at age 28 “with no worlds left to conquer.” In his last 14 U.S. and British Opens, this amateur won seven and was runner-up four times. (His other three starts were T11, T8 and T5).
Oh, he also won five U.S. Amateurs (a record).