Jordan Spieth: Recent turnaround is “awesome to see”

Jordan Spieth pushed himself into contention on Friday at THE NORTHERN TRUST. How close are we to seeing him keep it together for a week – or more?

Jordan Spieth has been waiting for his game to come together.  The last few weeks, he’s shown signs of that happening.  Friday, he posted a second round 64 at the Northern Trust tournament to put himself one back of tournament leader Dustin Johnson headed into the weekend.

"“I think that the turnaround in ball-striking week-to-week is certainly awesome to see that it’s possible; that it is just — that it was close,” he said to media after his second round. “It’s kind of verification of what I’ve been talking about.”"

Spieth credited better ball-striking.  Goodness knows he’s been in search of it for the last year or so.

"“I’m just tracking on a much better place throughout the golf swing,” he said. “It’s just been trying to figure out how to track it that way has been kind of the tough part.”"

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He posted the 64 despite hitting into a fairway bunker on the 8th and hitting into what they call “native areas” three times, twice on the 18th hole. But he avoided what have been fairly consistent doubles and triples.  His putter was also behaving for a change.

“I think confidence, for me, is knocking in birdie putts,” he explained, adding that the confidence allows him to put the pedal down in scoring. “When you’re at 3, 4-under, pushing it to 6-, 7-under, that’s what I’m looking to do, not being afraid to go low.”

He made a 30-footer. He got a drop at the 9th when he was on a cart path.

"“I hit it right, and it had landed just right of the cart path,” he noted. “It was sitting pretty bad, but I was standing on the cart path, so I could take a drop.”"

According to Spieth, he was able to place it, presumably because the drop was on a slope and it rolled closer to the hole.

“It landed just right of the green, like into the fairway, kind of on one of the knobs and just deadened it and went to 15 feet and I made the putt,” he added, then corrected the length to 18 feet. Shotlink had it at 18 feet 10 inches.

He made a 15-footer at 12 and birdied from the greenside bunker on the 13th. He dropped two more birdie putts, at the 15th and 17th. The round included eight birdies and one bogey.

While Spieth’s fairways hit was just 50 percent, his greens in regulation stat for the second round was an astonishing 83 percent.  Nobody hits that on a regular basis.  Corey Conners, who currently leads the PGA Tour in greens in regulation hits a little over 73 percent.

Now that he has revisited the game he used to have, Spieth just has to keep it together for another two rounds.  He also has to hold off some stiff competition from Johnson as well as Jon Rahm, Justin Rose and Rory McIlroy.