All was good in the world of Jordan Spieth last February when he captured the AT&T at Pebble Beach, sending a warm fuzzy feeling through his main sponsor.
All was well, surely he’d make his run to The Masters.
Sure enough, Spieth did contend at The Masters and was in position to make a big final round move. That didn’t happen. He shot 75 and has been looking for his lost Mojo ever since that Sunday.
He missed the 36-hole cut last week at The Players and the Jordan Spieth we’ve seen this year hasn’t looked at all like the kid who won The Masters and U.S. Open back-to-back in 2015.
Spieth is back home in Dallas for this week’s Byron Nelson. A win here is on his list of goals. “Winning both (Nelson and Colonial) is something that is a life-long goal for me and I have this one yet to accomplish,” said Spieth, who won the Colonial in nearby Fort Worth last season.
He’s been pretty ragged by his standards this season, outside of that win, it hasn’t been anything to write home about. “The problem this year so far has been my opening rounds,” Spieth confessed. “I haven’t had it. I’ve been behind the eight-ball too many times.”
Spieth made a drastic move this week. He took his Scotty Cameron 009 model out of the bag and putt a Cameron Futura in play at Las Colinas.
“I’m striking the ball as well as I’ve struck it this entire year, which is as good as I’ve struck the ball on tour,” he pointed out. “My wedge play and putting are yet to kick into gear.”
The only problem with that is that it is the wedge game and putting that makes Spieth the player that had that huge season back in 2015.
Take away his wedge play and putting and he’s just another guy out there with his name on his bag. That’s the way he looked last week at TPC Sawgrass when he didn’t come close to making the cut.
Maybe familiar territory will help him.
It was here that Spieth finished in a tie for 16th as a 16-year-old high school kid back in 2010.
Doesn’t seem that long ago.
Thursday Spieth didn’t put himself behind the eight-ball as he admits has happened too often this season.
He shot a two-under par 68, getting out early before the strong winds started whipping the afternoon wave.
“It was almost,” Spieth said of his opening round. “Felt pretty good out there. I played better than my score. As for the new putter, he added: “I feel like I know when I’m lined up.”
Maybe that’s a hint that he hasn’t been sure of how he’s lined up on a bunch of putts this year.
The stat that’s hard to fathom is that he’s not even in the top 60 when it comes to making putts in the four-feet to eight-feet range.
That distance used to be automatic for him.
Take that away and you have a guy who is struggling and has seen himself fall steadily in the world rankings, down to No. 6.
Yes, Spieth is searching for his lost Mojo. It feels like he left it back in 2015.
He still has the U.S. Open, the Open Championship and the PGA to make up for that stumble at The Masters.
He’ll need to find that wedge game and putting that has been missing.
Maybe then the Mojo will come back.
