Jordan Spieth has been away from the PGA Tour for four weeks.
After what happened on the 12th hole at the Masters in April, he needed it.
“Old ladies have come up to me at the grocery store and said, ‘I’m praying for you’ and I tell them it’s alright,” Spieth said this week with a trace of a grin. He may be the most-watched player at the Players Championship this week with fans staring and wondering if he really will be alright.
“It will always be there,” Spieth said of the memories of his painful-to-watch quadruple bogey at the historic 12th hole at Augusta National. He pointed out that he is fortunate enough to already have a Green Jacket and that even if he wins more, the 12th hole and his fateful mis-fire will always be there, somewhere, that’s just the way it is.
This week marks the beginning of Spieth’s summer schedule, one that will see him in action more than not. After this week, he’ll play in Dallas and Fort Worth then the Memorial and that will take him to the U.S. Open where he is once again the defending champion.
But this week he is focused on getting his game “back to where it was at Augusta,” he said.
As far the the TPC Sawgrass goes: “middle of these greens is good, like at Augusta. The greens here (TPC) are small and if you hit the middle, you won’t have too long a putt.”
The man who benefitted from Spieth’s collapse at the Masters, Danny Willett, also makes his return to the U.S. since taking the Green Jacket from Spieth.
It is a marvelous field this week, but the man they will wonder about is Spieth. They won’t have to wait long on Thursday, he goes off at 8:43 a.m. on the 10th tee with world’s No. 1, Jason Day, and Branden Grace.
“I’ll be fine,” Spieth says.
No doubt he will.
