Jordan Spieth Loves TPC Sawgrass – Calls Players Fifth Major
While many players approach TPC Sawgrass with dream, Jordan Spieth embraces the Pete Dye masterpiece.
Jordan Spieth isn’t like most PGA Tour players who come to TPC Sawgrass. Any number of THE PLAYERS Championship field would rather get a root canal than play TPC Sawgrass for a living. It’s tough, it’s penal, it’s unforgiving. But it must be played.
Jordan Spieth loves it. And he called THE PLAYERS the fifth major.
“It’s very pure. This is one of my favorite courses in the world. Pete Dye did a great job here, and I enjoy playing his courses in general,” Spieth told media.
Most golfers would think he was crazy. Most golfers do not enjoy discovering that what looked like a great drive ended up in a pot bunker or a hidden stream. Or that their nearly perfect shot rolled off the fairway into a lake. That uncertainty and risk just add to the fun for Jordan Spieth.
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“You’ve got to strike the ball extremely well,” Spieth added. “It plays narrower than it seems, just given if it sits down a little in the rough, it just creates havoc with flier lies and balls bouncing over the greens into tough spots.”
So while others may be annoyed when their drive at the 18th rolls into the trees, Spieth looks at it as part of the fun of playing this kind of course, a course that demands controlled shot-making.
“It’s kind of a spot-to-spot type of golf course that requires working the ball both directions and controlling it in the wind, and obviously the closing stretch takes some nerve,” he explained. “It’s a great test, I think. It’s one that, if the breeze picks up a little, around 12-under wins, which means it’s a difficult track – not the toughest that we play all year, but one of the tougher tracks of the year. I enjoy that.”
After a four-week rest, probably the longest stretch he’s had off in a year, Jordan Spieth says he’s rested, physically and mentally and ready to take time to recover from 2015 and early 2016. He played some golf with buddies in the Bahamas. He did sponsor commercials.
“The third week while I was starting to get back into it — I was in the gym by the end of the first week off, trying to almost create an off-season program to get some strength back, and that automatically goes away for everyone in a season,” he said.
Then, ten days before THE PLAYERS, Jordan Spieth started working on his game.
“I was kind of on the grind the last week-and-a-half with Cameron, seeing him every other day. Didn’t wear myself out. Didn’t hit too many balls,” he said. “I wasn’t putting in 9:00 to 5:00 on the driving range kind of hours, but I was getting good practice, really focusing on each shot and making sure that I’m doing it the right way.”
Jordan Spieth has already practiced several days, arriving in Ponte Vedra early, and said he feels like he’s starting a new season.
“This might, technically, be the hardest tournament to win in the world, so I’ve got a tall task ahead this week,” he said about his self-described, next mountain to climb.
His goal is to go out and work his way up the leaderboard.
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“We approach this as if it’s a fifth major. We believe it is,” Spieth said. “I think it is the best field in golf, and that gets us going, at least for me. I would love to win this tournament, this championship, given it means you’ve beaten the best field in golf on a very gutsy track.”