Jordan Spieth continues to battle for improvement at the RBC Heritage

Jordan Spieth has been fighting all year to find some positives in the progress he’s made with his game. The RBC Heritage didn’t get off to a strong start, but he’s hoping that his patience and determination will pay off soon.

Jordan Spieth is still battling his golf game. This time, he’s at the RBC Heritage where he shot a first round even par after a double in his first nine holes.

Starting on the back nine, Spieith made four pars and then got himself a double bogey at the par three 14th. The hole has water all along the right side and then bonus water that curves around the back side of the green. It’s intimidating, but to a player of Spieth’s capability, it should be an easy shot.

Well, it wasn’t. Instead of hitting 192 yards, or even 182 yards, he came up nearly 30 yards short. Water. Penalty shot. Hit from drop area and made five. Not the way anyone wants to begin a tournament.

“Yeah, one of my irons went in the water, but it’s the best 8-iron I’ve hit in a year and a half. I caught an into gust when it was supposed to be down,” he said to reporters and the PGA Tour media official after his round. “That front nine today, kind of felt like my first nine holes at Augusta. I got about a 2-over instead of 4.”

Spieth shot 40 in his first nine at the Masters and clawed his way back to 1-over par.

Playing the back nine of the course first at the RBC Heritage, Spieth shot 37. Then he righted the ship and posted a second nine 34 to end the day at even par, 71.

“I felt like I stayed really patient, took some punches today on some wind gusts or whatever it may be, and some putts that almost went in,” he said about his round, adding that he fought back to stay in the tournament. “With the conditions we have coming up through the next three days, I kept myself in it. I really could have shot 2- or 3-over today.”

Winds were definitely picking up in advance of a storm system that is headed toward the coast tomorrow.

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However, it wasn’t just the 8-iron that was an issue. Spieth’s putter wasn’t delivering at first, either. He missed a four-footer at the 16th for birdie, but made a four-and-a-half-footer at the 17th. He wasn’t making any of the long-range putts that he became famous for in 2015.

“I was still putting to the speed of Augusta. I haven’t fully made the transition away from that,” he said about his early holes. “Just tough out there coming off last week to this week, to get yourself to pop it harder than you really want to.”

Then at the turn, it was like a different Jordan Spieth showed up. He made a 35-footer for birdie at the first, an eight-footer at the third and finished with a seven-footer birdie at the 9th. That saved his round.

On the down side, he did not birdie any of the par fives. There are three of them at the Harbour Town Golf Links course.

“It’s one of those days it’s hard to commit to a club, because you feel like you’ve got an in between number on every hole,” he explained.

One reason is that the trees shelter the wind more on some holes than on others.

“You can do everything right and end up in a really bad spot out here sometimes,” he said, pointing to the fact that the wind is also swirling. “You’ll see a lot of guys changing clubs and maybe taking a little longer to hit their shots.”

After a couple of years of not playing this tournament, Spieth added the RBC Heritage back to his schedule because he thinks the style of the course and the grasses suit his play.

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“I was planning on playing here probably a couple of months ago. And it’s because, the few years that I have played, I played it well,” he explained about coming back to the tournament. “I feel like I’m doing myself a disservice — just because it’s after the Masters — not coming to this event.”

Jordan Spieth plays at 12:50 p.m. EDT on Friday with Francesco Molinari and Webb Simpson.

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