Top 20 Players to Watch in 2019: No. 8 Jordan Spieth

Jordan Spieth has exceeded even our wildest expectations for the last half decade, but 2018 was a heavy reality check for the former World No. 1. However, with a renewed focus, he’s still one of the top players to watch on the PGA TOUR in 2019.

Jordan Spieth has been on a proverbial magic carpet ride for most of the last five years. Ever since making his debut on the PGA TOUR in 2013 – it doesn’t seem that long ago, does it? – he’s been nearly flawless. He’s won three majors, had legitimate chances to win at least four more, and generally become the new face of the golf world.

2018, on the other hand, was perhaps a bit of a reality check. Spieth went winless for the second time in his career, but that wasn’t really even the biggest story. He also recorded just five top-ten finishes – the lowest number in his career – and failed to qualify for the season-ending TOUR Championship for the first time. Even when it came to the Ryder Cup, Spieth inadvertently found himself in the middle of Patrick Reed’s drama, as he was partnered with Justin Thomas for each of their four matches in a losing effort at Le Golf National.

Spieth made a pair of starts in the fall to try to close out the year on a high note, but at least on the course, it didn’t work out quite as well. With the turn of the calendar, though, 2019 brings a new year filled with new opportunities. And I don’t just expect Spieth to bounce back, I’m looking for him to make a serious charge at returning to the top of the game.

He returns to action at the Sony Open in Hawaii this week, now a married man. With the struggle and stress of 2018 now firmly in his rear-view mirror, he’s got plenty of time to focus on the talents that brought him to the promised land to begin with. Primarily, that starts with getting his putter back in line, as that flat stick was a big part of what made him the best golfer in the world.

In the 2017-18 PGA TOUR season, Spieth ranked just 123rd on TOUR in strokes gained putting, losing strokes to the field for the first time ever. However, he did start to make some strides over the later part of the summer, and he believes – firmly – that he’s got everything he needs to keep from falling behind this year.

“Everything that I’m working on, I know what to do,” Spieth said ahead of the Dell Technologies Championship. “It’s about actually doing it. The good news is that they are all trends that will serve me better, in the long run, going forward.

"“It’s not anything that anyone would have diagnosed in my stroke. It was because of how I viewed my putter in the setup. It’s not frustrating. I don’t really care what other people are saying. Why would I trust what anybody else says when I know exactly what’s going on? I didn’t know exactly for a little while, but I knew that it was in the setup. I’d set over the ball and it didn’t look right to me, then I had to figure out why.”"

If I’m being honest, I get why many people seem to be off the Jordan Spieth bandwagon, at least for the short term. Competition is as tough as it’s been in decades on TOUR, with a near-logjam at the top of the world rankings. Take a look at the top 15, which currently excludes Spieth, and every one of those players has major-winning, No. 1 potential. If Spieth is on a downswing, even a fantastically short-term one, how are we supposed to expect a quick return?

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My answer is simple: he’s done it before, and it’s not like he’s forgotten how to compete on the elite level. If anything, I think that a refocused Spieth might be even more of a dangerous competitor than he was before. Perhaps it’s a bit of a chip on his shoulder, or the mentality of having to prove again that he’s still on top of his game.

This week in Hawaii will be a good start, as he’s finished inside the top 20 each of the last two years, with a solo third in 2017. Really, much of the early schedule sets up well for Spieth to get off to a hot start, from Waialae to Pebble Beach, with potential stops at some combination of Phoenix, Pebble Beach and Riviera on the road to Augusta National and the Masters.

If that happens, Spieth could be in line for the same brand of thrilling golf that saw him challenge for the Grand Slam four years ago. The game is there. The talent is (obviously) still there. Sleep on Jordan Spieth in 2019 at your own risk.