Rested Spieth brings ‘a little fire’ to his first shot at Royal Birkdale
The last we saw of Jordan Spieth, he was doing a midair chest bump with caddie Michael Greller after holing out from a bunker on the first playoff hole, eventually winning the Travelers Championship three weeks ago.
Since then, Spieth has buried his feet in the sand during a oneweek vacation in Mexico, which included a round of golf with Michael Phelps and friends and another round with Michael Jordan and friends.
Spieth had played six of seven weeks before crossing the border, and his holiday was a welcomed breather. Although his intention was to not pick up a club during the downtime, the urge got him, which he gladly welcomed. After returning home to Texas, he quickly went to work in earnest.
“Feel fresh. Feel ready to go,” Spieth, 23, said Tuesday at Royal Birkdale after a practice round in which he teamed with Justin Thomas in a match against Phil Mickelson and Jon Rahm ahead of Thursday’s start of the 146th British Open. “It was just kind of nice to breathe deeply for a week straight out there and then come back with a little fire and a little longing to get back to work. It was nice to kind of have that fire and then put in some pretty solid work over the last week. The game feels really good right now.”
Spieth has two wins this season — a runaway triumph in the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am and the Travelers. He joined Tiger Woods as the only players to win 10 PGA Tour titles before turning 24. He’s No. 3 in the world rankings.
But there have been disappointments, as well, including missing three cuts in four starts during one stretch and collapsing in the final round in the Masters, where he started the day two shots out of the lead and fell to a tie for 11th.
This led some to wonder what was wrong with Spieth. Unfortu- nately, it’s the price to pay when you deliver a magical 2015 season in which you win five times, capture the FedExCup, win the first two majors of the season and finish in a tie for fourth in the British Open and second in the PGA Championship.
Doubts popped up last year when Spieth won three times. At times he has been irritated with the questions, other times puzzled by them. Yet he addressed each query, just as he did during his pre-tournament news conference.
“I haven’t been making as many putts as I did that year this year,” Spieth said. “I’ve struck the ball better than I did in ’15. I’ve actually been in better position. If you took hole by hole, I’ve been in a better position tee to green than I was that year. If I putted the same as ’15, I’d be having a better year right now. It’s hard to do. I think I was top three, top five in strokes gained putting in ’ 15 and ’16, and this year we’re just a little down, but we’re close.
“So, yeah, certain parts of the game I think I’ve improved on. And others, you know, it’s just fluctuated.”
Spieth is playing Royal Birkdale for the first time. This is his fifth British Open, and he has been here since Saturday working on his game. Links golf requires shots he wouldn’t otherwise hit in the USA and the greens are much slower, so he has been putting in extra work to fine-tune those aspects of his game. And he’s been learning the golf course and the strategy involved to be successful on the massive layout.
“I like the golf course. It’s very cool. It’s a very tough but fair test, one that’s demanding off the tee,” Spieth said. “And if you get that part done, into the greens and on the greens, you can play kind of to the center of them and putt to the corners. The greens aren’t crazy. There’s only a couple that have any kind of ridges to them. So it’s about controlling your ball off the tee in these crosswinds to give yourself the opportunity to hit the center of the green.
“I think we have a good game plan thus far. I’m excited to get started.”