Jordan Spieth is ready for a fresh start.
The three-time major champion and former World No. 1 was mired in the worst slump of his career before COVID-19 caused the PGA Tour to hit the pause button on the 2019-20 season.
Spieth hasn’t won since the 2017 British Open and dropped to No. 56 in the Official World Golf Ranking. With the PGA Tour set to resume its season Thursday at the Charles Schwab Challenge, a place where Spieth’s name is on the Wall of Champions (2016) and he’s recorded five other top-15 finishes at Colonial Country Club in Fort Worth, Spieth is treating it like opening day.
“It would be nice if we could get like some fighter jets flying over the first tee shots, something like that, that you’d see at an opening day stadium, but yeah, it’s got a little bit of that kind of excitement to it,” he said.
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When he tees off in a group with Rickie Fowler and Justin Thomas, it will have been 91 days since the PGA Tour season was suspended on March 12. Spieth, 26, said he enjoyed his extended time at home in Dallas and having his brother and girlfriend live with them for much of the layoff. He also used the break in his career for some good old-fashioned soul-searching.
“I looked at it as a big-time opportunity for myself and didn’t take it lightly. I was certainly grateful for the time,” he said. “Certainly it’s not a positive situation in general, but for me personally, I tried to look at how can I make this an advantage to myself.”
Golf Channel analyst and former University of Texas golfer Brandel Chamblee argues that perhaps no one may have benefited more from the downtime than Spieth.
“Because he was clearly struggling,” Chamblee said of Spieth who ranks No. 227 in driving accuracy and No. 221 in greens in regulation this season.
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“I believe that there’s intellectual power in solitude. I believe that Jordan Spieth would have been closer to finding that. It’s his genius that I think made him the player he was, with a little help from a coach,” Chamblee said. “And when I see the interaction between Jordan Spieth and his coach (Cameron McCormick) on driving ranges, it looks frantic. So perhaps 13 weeks off would have given him some time to sort of clear up his mind.”
Spieth said he treated the first month as he would the off-season and assessed how he played in the first five tournaments of the year. Using that as a framework, he started making a series of adjustments and began playing more.
“It was a strong focal point of the last few months, how can I get better physically, mentally and within the mechanics of my golf game, and then what’s the right process to start to put that in place, and it’s not something that clicks and all of a sudden and you’re just automatically the best player in the world,” he said. “It’s certainly a process. But creating the right little habits that get me back on track was a big emphasis during the last few months.”
When asked to elaborate on some of those adjustments he’s made, Spieth held his cards close to his vest.
“It’s about getting the feel back, kind of finding it in the ground, finding what shots are uncomfortable and know how to figure out my tendencies because a lot of times when you’re on a driving range you can kind of really stripe it, and it may not be a total tell on what’s being produced on the golf course.”
Chamblee has heard Spieth claim that he’s figured out his faults before during the slump and says, “I’m looking forward to seeing if Jordan Spieth has sort of solved the riddle.”
“When you watch Spieth, there’s a sense that you’re watching an extraordinarily rare athlete,” Chamblee added. “Just the grit and the guile and the ability to devastate opponents with unbelievable shots. I mean, his last victory was the Open Championship in 2017, but I mean, pick a shot. There’s a half dozen on that final day that were unforgettable. And he did that so many times in his career so far.”
Jordan Spieth is 161st this season on the @PGATour in strokes gained tee-to-green. He leads all players in that stat at Colonial the last decade. Can Spieth find his old self this week in Fort Worth?https://t.co/BeKhtdaPEH pic.twitter.com/GaCkFKbxbm
— Justin Ray (@JustinRayGolf) June 9, 2020
For Spieth, there’s no better place to resume the season than at Colonial, where he won in 2016 and ranks first in six different statistical categories at the tournament since 2013, including scoring (67.79). He said he’d like to regain his former form and make a run at earning a berth on the U.S. Ryder Cup team and excelling in the seven majors that are currently scheduled to be played in the next 12 months.
“Things are feeling better than they have in a while, but it’s not to say that everything is back to the best ball-striking I’ve ever had,” he said. “I know once things are feeling in control to me and the timing element kind of comes back into my game, the rest of it, the results will take care of itself.”
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