Jordan Spieth continues to struggle at WGC Mexico Championship
Jordan Spieth spent Thursday’s opening round of the WGC-Mexico Championship with his dad on the bag, as regular caddie Michael Greller was home to mourn the loss of his own father. Unfortunately, the father-son duo was unable to gain any real momentum as the three-time major champion still looks for his swing.
Jordan Spieth is having a rough go of things this year. While most of the issues he faces seem to be internal – he still says he’s looking to reset his swing – external factors have even started turning on him as he looks to get back on track at the WGC-Mexico Championship.
Spieth got to enjoy a little unplanned family time on Thursday at Chapultepec Golf Club, with his dad, Shawn, taking over as a fill-in caddie. Unfortunately, the reason for the pairing was less than pleasant. Michael Greller, who has carried the bag for Jordan Spieth throughout his entire pro career, left Mexico earlier this week to be with his family following the passing of his own father.
The Spieths did get off to a decent start in the first round, carding a birdie on the first hole. But as has been the case for the three-time major winner for some time now, consistency was a massive issue. Jordan made the turn at level par with a second birdie on the par-5 6th offset by a pair of bogeys on Nos. 3 and 7, both par-3s. A bogey on No. 10 saw Spieth miss a five-footer for par.
Then, almost before you could blink, a wayward drive on 11 sent Spieth back to the tee laying three. His drive found the fairway, but he put his approach in the greenside bunker. A blast out to 11 feet led to a two-putt double. Suddenly an average round was in danger of becoming a disaster.
Spieth did make two more birdies, including a bounce-back on No. 12 and another on No 15. Unfortunately, that last one came after bogeys on 13 and 14, and it was followed by another on 16. Golf is a tough game, but we’ve never seen Spieth look this…mortal? Flawed? Uncertain of himself?
Again, I don’t want to blast Spieth too much here. He’s done almost everything there is to do in golf before he even turned 25, and he’s handled himself with nothing but grace during his drought. His caddie – one of his closest colleagues and friends – is going through a major personal loss, and here he is, still trying to figure out what’s so different about his game since he was winning just about everything in sight.
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Spieth did his best to be positive after the round, acknowledging the stressors for everyone on his team. “I wish I would have done more for him,” he said, thinking of his father’s debut as a TOUR-level caddie. “But glad he’s stepping in. Our bright moment was probably No. 1. Just trying to progress each day.”
That’s the key word – progress. It’s something that he’s been looking for, really, for nearly a year. Spieth has just two top-ten finishes dating back to the 2018 Masters, and three additional top-25s. In that same period, he’s missed four cuts and finished outside the top-50 four more times. One of those came at the Genesis Open, where he completely imploded in the final round. In a lot of ways, you wouldn’t blame Spieth for just taking a month or so away from the TOUR entirely, but that’s just not how he handles these issues.
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The turning point (or breaking point) has to be coming sometime soon. Spieth isn’t some flash in the pan who might not be able to live up to the hype. He’s been doing this for years, we know how good he is when he’s firing on all cylinders. Unfortunately, that time looks like it may still be a few weeks away.