It was 70-ugly-four for Jordan Spieth this past Sunday at the Byron Nelson.
He had better days at the TPC Four Seasons as a 16-year-old high school kid. He went from breathing down Brooks Koepka’s neck to a tie for 18th. He was losing shots faster than you can say “Hook ‘Em Horns.”
“Kind of stinks given I had a chance here at a hometown event,” Spieth said.
He called Sunday’s round “just a tough day.” It seems Spieth has already had a lot more of those this season that he did all of 2015.
Playing in the final pairing with Koepka, Spieth hit only five fairways and just nine of 18 greens. He had 31 putts.
When it was almost over, he salvaged some pride in front of the hometown Dallas folks with an approach shot at 18 that stopped within three feet of the hole. Brooks Koepka would have given a lot of money to have it.
It was Spieth’s only birdie of the round. Let’s repeat that, his ONLY birdie for a long day’s work.
It was painfully obvious that he didn’t make a lot of progress after missing the cut at the Players Championship two weeks ago. He was missing fairways with his tee shots both right and left. Even short irons, like the now-infamous nine-iron on the 12th hole at The Masters, were a problem.
Spieth freely admitted he was “feeling stress over the golf ball,” before his swings.
What Spieth has shown everyone is how fast bad can happen.
“You get it, you lose it, you get it back again, you lose it, you get it back again,” is how Tom Watson described the struggles of professional golf many years ago when he was in his prime.
There will be more “hometown” fans watching Spieth this week at The Colonial. Longhorn fans are everywhere. So are Jordan Spieth fans, especially when you’re just a short drive from Dallas.
Spieth has had plenty of time with his swing-coach, Cameron McCormack, who works out of Dallas.
Every television commentator from Nick Faldo to Peter Kostis was pointing out Spieth’s swing problems last week that led to so many errant golf shots.
Spieth has to know what’s going wrong.
The question remains: Will he be able to do anything about it?
2 Comments
KStokes
Why don’t the media tell the truth about Jordan and Rousy and others they build up these ppl are not what the media build them up to be. The media hypes these ppl up to be great even b4 they do anything to be great. Jordan had one good year on tour and the media build him up to be better then Tiger. Their has been others to have one good year where are they now, yah who are they, you can’t even rem their name. Just like the media build up ronda rousy until she fought a real champion and we all saw what happen to her.
Editor In Chief
I have read no credible golf writers or those who follow golf proclaiming Spieth as the next Tiger. But right now, Jordan Spieth IS better than Tiger Woods, after all, Woods couldn’t get a wedge shot over the water from 100 yards with three tries a couple of weeks ago.