Jordan Spieth returns from long break with high hopes

Jordan Spieth returns from his longest break during a calendar year hopeful that a fresh start will end his longest drought.

Spieth hasn’t won since the 2017 British Open at Royal Birkdale, a span of 54 tournaments worldwide. He last played in August at the BMW Championship, where he failed to advance to the Tour Championship for the second straight year.

Spieth is at the CJ Cup in South Korea and plans to stay in Asia another week for the PGA Tour’s first event in Japan.

“I certainly want to get back in the winner’s circle,” Spieth said. “It’s been a little while, and I would like to be more consistent this year, being able to tee it up on Sundays with chances to win more consistently, and that comes from better ball-striking.”

Spieth said he has spent time at home in Dallas working on his tee-to-green game. He is coming off one of his best years with the putter — and there have been some good ones — and believes once he gets the rest of his game in order, he’ll have more chances.

He had only four top-10 finishes last year, often hurting himself with poor final rounds. The closest he finished to the winner was four shots behind in The Northern Trust, the first FedEx Cup playoff event.

“Each part of my game at different points in my career has been toward the top of the PGA Tour at different times, and sometimes at the same time,” Spieth said. “So I know that I’m capable of doing it.”

WORLD CHALLENGE

Except for the location, the “World” in Hero World Challenge seems to be lacking this year.

Tournament host Tiger Woods released the names of the 16 players who qualified for the 18-man field on Dec. 4-7 in the Bahamas. With two sponsor exemptions still to award, all but two players are Americans — defending champion Jon Rahm of Spain and Justin Rose of England, whose main residence is at Albany.

That would be the fewest international players since 2012 at Sherwood Country Club in California, when the only non-Americans were Graeme McDowell of Northern Ireland, Jason Day of Australia and Ian Poulter of England. McDowell won the tournament.

The field has two of the major champions in Woods (Masters) and Gary Woodland (U.S. Open).

It doesn’t help that the Presidents Cup in Australia is the following week, and International captain Ernie Els is encouraging his prospective players to compete in the Australian Open the week before, opposite the Hero World Challenge.

Nine international players from outside Europe were among the top 50 on Aug. 26, the world ranking used to determine the Bahamas field.