Pro Golf Now
Fansided

Sony Open Recap: How eight of the PGA TOUR’s best fell short

By Bill Felber

HONOLULU, HI - JANUARY 12: Stewart Cink of the United States plays his shot from the 17th tee during the third round of the Sony Open In Hawaii at Waialae Country Club on January 12, 2019 in Honolulu, Hawaii. (Photo by Kevin C. Cox/Getty Images)
HONOLULU, HI - JANUARY 12: Stewart Cink of the United States plays his shot from the 17th tee during the third round of the Sony Open In Hawaii at Waialae Country Club on January 12, 2019 in Honolulu, Hawaii. (Photo by Kevin C. Cox/Getty Images) /
facebooktwitterreddit
Prev
5 of 9
Next
HONOLULU, HI – JANUARY 11: Jordan Spieth of the United States (R) stands with caddie Michael Greller during the second round of the Sony Open In Hawaii at Waialae Country Club on January 11, 2019 in Honolulu, Hawaii. (Photo by Sam Greenwood/Getty Images)
HONOLULU, HI – JANUARY 11: Jordan Spieth of the United States (R) stands with caddie Michael Greller during the second round of the Sony Open In Hawaii at Waialae Country Club on January 11, 2019 in Honolulu, Hawaii. (Photo by Sam Greenwood/Getty Images) /

The world waits for Jordan Spieth to resume his upward trek toward the pinnacle of the PGA Tour. It hasn’t happened to date in the 2019 season, and it sure didn’t happen at Waialae, either.

Spieth was making only his third start of the season, the first two highlighted, if that’s not too strong a word, by a tie for 55th place at the Shriners event. During the 2018 season he gave back nearly a stroke per round on his 2017 seasonal average. So far in 2019 he’s surrendered another stroke and a half on that sub-par 2018 performance.

Obviously it’s early and there’s plenty of room for the multi-time major champion to turn things around. Still, don’t you expect better than the game’s 117th best stroke average and no top-50 finishes from one of the game’s putative stars?

There was one ray of hope at Sony, and it came off the tee. For the season, Spieth has driven somewhere between poorly and wretchedly, giving the field a half stroke per round. At Sony, he actually gained a quarter-stroke on the field per round.

In all other aspects o f his game, it may be time to send out a search party to locate the real Spieth, because the evil twin unloosed at Waialae was a poor imitation. Spieth gave the field better  than a quarter-stroke per round approaching the green, and gave back another tenth of a stroke per round on the greens themselves. To the extent Spieth has had strengths in 2019, those have been the strengths.

The totality of Spieth’s game at Waialae was something fractionally worse than what he’s been doing all season which, given his 71.05 stroke average, hasn’t been very good. Setting a low bar and then missing it is a good way to miss a cut.

Home/PGA