Spieth: Putter coming around
There wasn’t much hesitation from Jordan Spieth when asked if there was anyone on the planet who might be a better a putter than him.
“No single name necessarily comes to mind,” Spieth said Tuesday. “I’d still like to bet on myself, if I can.”
Well, Speith can bet on himself this week at Shinnecock Hills, where he will start the U.S. Open on Thursday morning paired in a star-studded grouping with Rory McIlroy and Phil Mickelson. And all the focus for Spieth will be on the flat-stick, the one club that had previously been his biggest strength that this season turned into his worst enemy.
This season, Spieth is ranked 190th in strokes-gained putting, losing an average of .444 shots to the field per round. When he won his first two major championships in 2015, including the U.S. Open at Chambers Bay, he finished the season ranked ninth. He then finished 2016 ranked second. But it started to slip in 2017, finishing 42nd, even though he added his third major with the Open Championship.
And then this season, which has just been a nightmare on the greens and has not surprisingly resulted in Spieth having not won despite a valiant run on Sunday at the Masters.
“Everyone goes through peaks and valleys of results in any part of your game,” Spieth said. “I just got a little off in setup, and I’m really starting to bring it back now. It feels very good.”
The 24-year-old Texan is still one of the best young players in the game, and he is confident that working with his coach, Cameron Smith, is going to straighten out his putting. He did say that he thought his performance on the greens at last week’s Memorial tournament at Muirfield Village in Ohio was a step in the right direction — despite the fact that he missed the cut.
“I had, actually, a strong performance on the greens at Muirfield,” Spieth said. “It was my one bad ball-striking week of the year, so I didn’t get four rounds in. But I putted well there and am trending in the right direction.”
When Spieth won his lone U.S. Open, it was on bouncy, brown greens at Chambers Bay, greens so uncharacteristic for most of the PGA Tour that they have been redone since. Even Spieth admitted that after he beat Dustin Johnson by one stroke, he “ended up probably the only one happy leaving there.”
Spieth can likely rely on the greens being fast and the wind blowing, but now it’s time to see how much he can rely on his formerly trusty putter.
“I just kind of had a lot of patience with it, and it’s coming along nicely,” Spieth said. “The game feels like it’s in really good shape right now, as good as it has this year.”