To Believe or Not To Believe
For months, Jordan Spieth has been telling us that he is playing better now than ever before. Following his T12 finish at the Masters, Spieth said that he hit the ball better that week than when he did when he won by four in 2015.
Jordan Spieth is the reason I got into golf. I remember lying on the couch with a migraine on a Monday in July of 2015, waiting for my all-star baseball game later that evening, watching the final round of the 2015 Open Championship at St. Andrews, which finished on Monday due to horrible weather over the weekend. Spieth would come up just inches short of making the playoff, and I felt devastated for him, so I became a fan. Spieth finished the year winning the FedEx Cup, so happiness won in the end.
2015 Jordan Spieth has not really been seen since. He has had moments when he looked like the kid that went 1-1-4-2 in the majors; he holed out for birdie at the 2017 Travelers Championship (which he won) and then went on to win the 2017 Open Championship and nearly won a second FedEx Cup. He put on a display in the final round of the 2018 Masters, finishing third. He finished T3 at the 2021 Masters and second at the Open that year, but by and large, Jordan Spieth had been in the wilderness.
So after he told the media he was close to putting it back together, I was excited, but also very skeptical. My emotions are like Spieth’s golf game: all over the place. So far this year, his best finishes are T29 at Pebble Beach, T12 at Riviera, T11 at Bay Hill, T11 at Valspar, and T12 at the Masters. This week, at Doral, he finished T18. However, those finishes do not tell the whole story. At Pebble Beach, Spieth opened with a 66 (-6) and was in the hunt on Friday and Saturday. At the Masters, he did not start well, but finished strong. And this week, Spieth was one back after Thursday.
All Spieth is missing is putting it all together for four days. His ball striking, which has been an issue in the past, is back. His putter can become so hot that anything within 30 feet looks like a gimme, so all he is missing is one miraculous week, where everything falls into place. And what better place for it all to happen than at Aronimink in two weeks, where Spieth can finally capture a PGA Championship and the career grand slam.
So to believe or not to believe?