Jordan Spieth’s ’10-Year-Old’ Breakthrough and Vijay Singh Magic | Weekend 9

Welcome! Where are you, you ask. I call this Weekend 9. Think of it as a place to warm up for Friday, Saturday and Sunday. We will have thoughts. We will have tips. We’ll have tweets. But only nine in all, though sometimes perhaps more and sometimes perhaps less. As for who I am? The paragraphs below tell part of the story. I can be reached at nick.piastowski@golf.com.

I listened to Drake’s “One Dance” yesterday.

And ‘Ophelia’ by the Lumineers. And The Weeknd’s ‘Starboy’. The earwigs from ten years ago. The ones where, after turning on the car radio and hearing them, they found their way into your everyday chores. (Sing it with me now, supermarket shoppers: Oh, Ophelia, which aisle is the turkey meat?)

I had found the songs after hearing a few others as part of the 2016 social media challenge where people shared photos and such from that era. It’s cute. Me? Ten years ago, my wife and I spent eleven months in Omaha. It was by far our funkiest year. We’ve quit jobs. I have been accepted into a new position. Sold a house. Sold two cars. Looked in the rearview mirror at the life and routine we knew. And on December 30, two lifelong Midwesterners and two cats somehow found themselves in Brooklyn. Life happens like that sometimes. There was a plan. But usually not. It was ready-shoot-aim. Just keep moving.

Far away, so did Jordan Spieth.

Do you remember him from back then? He held pro golf in his palm like you would a golf ball. The year before he had won the Masters, the US Open and the Tour Championship, after which he had two victories in 2016 and three in 2017. How many more majors could he win? Any number seemed feasible. But zero was what he got. Hmm. A drought came. Injury. Searches. Questions, the most important of which are:

Would he ever return?

To some extent he did. Since 2021, he has won twice. He also feels fully recovered from the operation on his troublesome left wrist. On Thursday, after opening his ’26 season at the Sony Open, Spieth sounded optimistic. He thinks he can rely on his swing. However, there is more. He also reflected on the past ten years. And the next 10 years. He thought about what he should have done.

And what he wants to do in the future.

“I’m trying to enjoy myself more…” Spieth said. “It’s been a bit of a grind the last few years, and if I’m not having a good time here, I mean, I know 10 years from now I’ll be wishing I had this 10 years back. I definitely wish I could go back 10 years.”

“All in all, if you’re not having fun, what are you doing here? All of that together should really help.”

Shouldwhich means we will find out. But if you’re looking for real signs of Spieth’s rebirth, and if you want to believe that Spieth could be Spieth again, this is what you’re hoping to hear.

To quote “One Dance”:

Baby, I like your style.

“I’m saying that if you’re not there,” Spieth said, “and you’re not enjoying the fact that you’re living your dream and if it feels like a job and hard work and all that, and I’m telling you that it is and it really shouldn’t be. That’s not necessary.”

Let’s see if we can find eight more items for weekend 9.

2. From the same interview, the video below was good too.

3. This story hereby The fried egg Kevin Van Valkenburg was also good. It’s about Spieth – and nostalgia.

One takeaway for the weekend

4. Vijay Singh not only took advantage of a career money exemption on the PGA Tour this year.

He cashes checks with it. The 62-year-old is at two-under through two rounds of the Sony Open and will play this weekend.

And his Instagram account was also posted this:

One takeaway from the week that was

5. Brooks Koepka returns to the PGA Tour. And Bryson DeChambeau, Jon Rahm and Cameron Smith won’t be for a while. OK. And okay.

So when will the civil war end?

Will it?

Is Koepka’s move the one that crushes LIV? Or is this like a free agent trade, of which baseball has seen a few? (Apologies to anyone who isn’t bleeding Dodger blue.)

I’m sure you have thoughts. For me, a few quotes from this week are worth mentioning. On Wednesday, at an LIV season preview event, LIV Executive Vice President Team Business Operations Katie O’Reilly said this when asked when LIV’s 13 teams would start selling stakes:

“Our goal is to build $13 billion in franchises. That’s our goal. Are we there yet? No. But right now we’re laying the groundwork for that.” (David Rumsey of Front Office Sports wrote more on the subject, and you can read his story here.)

Then there are Rory McIlroy’s thoughts on LIV after the Koepka news. He was interviewed during the Dubai Invitational of the DP World Tour by That of the Telegraaf James Corrigan, and you can read his story here:

“It’s not like they’ve made any big signings this year, right? They haven’t signed anyone who raises the bar and I don’t think they will. I mean, they could re-sign Bryson for hundreds of millions of dollars, but even if they do, it doesn’t change their product, right? They’re just paying for the exact same thing. And they lost Brooks, so they’re going to pay out all this money and…”

Another takeaway from the week that was

6. The video below is good. At this week’s Bahamas Golf Classic on the Korn Ferry Tour, Roger Sloan’s tournament went as follows:

– Started as a deputy

— Moved to the field as players withdrew, including Noah Goodwin

— Arrived in the Bahamas a day before the tournament, but the tournament hotel was fully booked and he had no caddy

– I got a message from his regular caddy saying, “Hey, I have a guy” – and that guy could caddy and had a room

– Wait, why was Goodwin singled out a few lines above? Because the “man” who could help was Goodwin’s father, Jeff

— Sloan finished second

A golf story that interests me

7. The video belowfrom 22 seconds, was good. It’s golf. It’s college football. It’s Nick Saban.