Jordan Spieth’s Hand Injury; Rory Going To Pete Cowen

Apparently Tiger Woods isn’t the only guy who can keep a secret — Jordan Spieth is right there with him.

Spieth finally confessed that it was most likely a bone chip in his left hand that had a “hand” in starting his downward spiral in the world rankings.  Spieth said it probably happened while he was lifting weights and put aside the possibility of surgery to correct the issue.

It was the reason his left hand grip kept getting weaker and weaker in its position on the club.

“I probably fought changes that would have helped me turn things in the right direction a little bit sooner,” said Spieth, who has seen a big rebound in his play this season.

“As the year went on my grip got weaker, the club face got more open and then I needed to flip at impact and so it just required more timing,” he said. “From somebody who already has kind of a weaker grip to start with, you don’t really have much wiggle room on that side of the things.  And so, it’s something that I’ve got to continue to try and work on and make sure it’s not an issue,” Spieth continued. “It was 100 percent responsible for me not being able to strengthen my grip, which in turn then is probably normally the first thing guys go to, if something gets a little bit off is, all right, where in my setup are things different?

“It was very much a reason,” Spieth said of the injury and how it impacted his slump. “But I mean, everybody’s got some reason for something that they get off. That was mine, and I certainly could have handled it differently and feel good that right now it’s not an issue.”

Spieth is currently 47th in the FedEx Cup standings going into this week’s WGC Match Play.

Rory McIlroy Works With Pete Cowen:

It didn’t take long for Rory McIlroy to seek out a second opinion on his out-of-control golf swing.

McIlroy was seen on the range at The Players Championship working with well-known swing coach Peter Cowen.

Although Rory recently said he had no intention of leaving long-time coach Michael Bannon, players can be testy when things aren’t going well and for McIlroy, things aren’t going well.

After missing the cut at The Players, Rory confessed that he believed his current problems were brought on by “chasing speed” after seeing Bryson DeChambeau overpower Winged Foot at the U.S.

Open.

Corales Puntacana Championship For “All Those Others”:

With the best in the world competing at the WGC Match Play, the PGA Tour always provides a landing place for “All You Others” — basically those guys who are in the 70-125 category and the field at this week’s Corales Puntacana Championship is packed with guys in that not-fully-exempt 126 to 150 category.

On top of those guys, this week’s field at the Corales Golf Club has a bunch of old guys from the over-50 set in the field — Retief Goosen, Davis Love III, Miguel Angel Jimenez are a few.

European Ryder Cup captain Paddy Harrington has been playing often and he’s in the field as well.

One player coming in who has to be on an emotional high is Brandon Hagy.  He went from sixth alternate for the Honda Classic to getting in the field and played his way to a solo second last Sunday.  Huge move for Hagy.

No defending champion this week as the 2020 event was a casualty of the pandemic.

Bryson’s Digital Adventures:

Of course Bryson DeChambeau is getting his feet wet in the world of cyber stuff.

What a letdown!

On Monday, DeChambeau kept teasing the golf world with what he called a “big annoucement” forthcoming.

Had nothing to do with his swing, equipment, admiration for Kyle Berkshire or any of that stuff.

No, Bryson announced and became the first golfer to release his own limited-edition NFT trading cards.

NFT?

NFT stands for “non-fungible token.”  It is a piece of data that confirms ownership of a digital item.  It’s no joke, a LeBron James NFT highlight recently sold for $208,000.

Seriously?

Anyway, DeChambeau will have five versions of his trading cards and each will be sold at auction on something called OpenSea, a sizeable NFT marketplace.  The auction took place on Monday and Tuesday.

DeChambeau “sweetened the pot” by offering the high bidder an autographed U.S. Open flag, a custom set of Cobra golf clubs, a $1,000 Bose credit and six dozen Bridgestone golf balls.  Hopefully all those items are real and the “winner” can actually have them in his or her possession.