Jordan Spieth looks to get back on track after falling out of world top ten

Jordan Spieth has been in the top ten of the world golf rankings since his break out season in 2014. After a down season by his standards last year, he now ranks 13th in the Official World Golf Ranking – somewhere no one would have projected him to be a few seasons ago.

When Jordan Spieth won three majors in the span of a year in 2015, it looked like he was destined to remain the world’s number one golfer for a long time. He was easily the most talented young golfer in the game.

He was 22 then, and was the most popular and dominating force in all of golf, and it seemed like he was on a trajectory to be one of the best golfers of all-time. He is now three years older, and his only major victory since 2015 came over a year ago in the 2017 British Open.

Last season was by far the roughest of Spieth’s career because he failed to win a tournament all year or even qualify for the the Tour Championship for the first time in his career. He had almost as many missed cuts as he had top ten finishes in 2018, and his best finish came at the Masters when he came up just short of one of the best comebacks in major championship history. That disappointing season combined with his lack of recent major victories has caused him to take a dramatic fall down the world golf rankings.

Maybe there was too much pressure on Spieth after his rapid rise to superstardom that saw him shoot all the way up to number one in the world, and mirrored some of the game’s greatest players before him. After all his major sucess early in his career, he was supposed to become the next Jack Nicklaus or Tiger Woods and be the next dominant American golf superstar to take the game into a new era.

He definitely still has a chance to be that guy, but now even Tiger ranks just one spot behind Spieth in the world golf rankings, and he arguably had a better season than Spieth overall. If anyone would have predicted that three years ago or even at the beginning of last year they would have been laughed out of the room.

However on the bright side, Spieth was one of the only Americans who had success at this year’s Ryder Cup. Playing with his close friend Justin Thomas they formed the best American pairing in Paris. That may be faint praise considering the way that Team USA got manhandled at Le Golf National, but it’s still true.

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Spieth has always flourished on the biggest stage, so it is no surprise that he performs well playing for team USA when the pressure is turned up. Maybe he can carry that individual success from the Ryder Cup into this season and can get off to a better start to this year than his finish of last season.

Spieth can easily get his ranking back towards the top this season, and it would not be a surprise to see him in the top five by the end of the year because he has been known to have the grit to get his game on track when the circumstances are the toughest.

He will have his first shot to improve his ranking amongst the best golfers in the world this week the Shriners Hospitals for Children Open at TPC Summerlin.

He is maybe getting an early start to this season because of last year’s fiasco, when he failed to reach the required 25 starts, and wound up being fined by the PGA Tour.

Next. 2018 Shriners Hospitals for Children Open Power Rankings. dark

This drop out of the top ten will easily be forgotten if Spieth plays well early this season. That is why he might have extra motivation this week to get a victory and silence all of his critics and show he is still one of the top golfers in the world. Even though he might not have as high of a ranking going into this tournament as he has had in the past, he should still be one of the favorites to take home the trophy this Sunday in Las Vegas.

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