When Jordan Spieth was at the height of his powers, it seemed like every putt he looked at went in. Whether it was the 50-foot putt to win the 2015 Valspar, the 180-foot eagle at the 2017 Open Championship or the 80-foot eagle at the 2015 U.S. Open, when Spieth was cooking, he was a wizard with the flat stick.
According to Data Golf, Spieth made two or more shots on the field on the greens in 2015, 2016 and 2017. In 2019, he made 2.9 shots on the greens. The PGA Tour average, per Data Golf, is around zero. But after the 2019 season, Spieth’s putting started to go in the other direction. Per PGA Tour StatsSpieth ranked second in putting during the 2018-2019 season. In the following six seasons he ranked 105th, 33rd, 155th, 79th, 101st and 65th. The three-time major winner dealt with a wrist injury that affected his swing and has worked to eliminate some “bad tendencies” in his putting, which made him less reliable on shorter putts and robbed him of his trademark brilliance on the greens.
The putter was an important part of what made Spieth Spieth when he was a young superstar taking the sport by storm. Now 32, Spieth believes he has recaptured the putting magic that once captivated everyone. It starts with Spieth’s eyes. He has always putted best when looking at the hole, and over the past two weeks at Pebble Beach and Riviera, Spieth has found that groove again, and it helped him hit 5.8 strokes on the greens at Pebble and 6.1 at this week’s Genesis, where he tied for 12th. That included 110 feet of putts made in Round 2 and 97 in the final round.
“When I look at my spot, like I’m looking up, looking at the hole, my spot seems to be a weapon that I have back, which is really nice because I feel solid, whether it’s breaking or straight, all within a shorter range. Then when you start to expand, it frees you up,” Spieth said after his final round on Sunday.
“I putted incredibly well inside 10 feet, which is something I struggled with especially at Riviera, not that everyone does that. It would be hard for me to believe anyone could putt better
within 10 feet this week, and that was huge because those were par saves, those were second putts, things that keep the momentum going, keep the scorecards clean. And I made a few from outside the 10, which helped a bit in the second and fourth rounds.
Spieth opened his season with Sony in Hawaii, where he finished 35th in putting. He returned to Dallas and worked with his coach, Cameron McCormick, to adjust his putting setup. Spieth lost 1,215 strokes on the greens during a missed cut at the Waste Management, but has regained his old touch on the greens over the past two weeks on the West Coast, and he believes the good vibes he has with the flatstick will carry over into the rest of his game as he watches the Florida Swing and the Masters.
“It’s a big deal,” Spieth said. “I mean, it really is that you start as close to the hole as possible, and whatever feels comfortable just keeps moving further and further away, all the way into the long game.”
Spieth’s swing isn’t where he would like it to be. He took a lot of time off this offseason, using the first four starts of his year to get a feel for what he needs to hone his swing. With the Masters less than 50 days away, Spieth has a good understanding of the work that needs to be done to tailor the rest of his game to the ‘weapon’ he has rediscovered.
“But overall, I want to tighten it up a little bit off the tee,” Spieth said after losing 2.4 shots off the tee at Riviera. “And in iron play, I was looking forward to my short game, wedges and stuff like that, and I was making big strides, it was kind of C-checking and A-putting. But I know what I have to do and I feel like it’s only going to get better.”
After three weeks on the West Coast, Spieth returns to Dallas for a week off to work on fixing the issues with his swing. But he leaves California having found something he’s been looking for, and that has him looking forward to a friendly journey – one that ends on a course that brings out the best in him – with the feeling that Jordan Spieth is about to find the Jordan Spieth of old.
“I’m very confident. I like the trajectory that’s coming,” Spieth said.
“I feel like I have some momentum.”
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