Speith, Rahm and JT Admit Playing without Fans Will Be Weird

Jordan Spieth, Jon Rahm and Justin Thomas can’t wait to play golf again. But not one of them wants to wear a microphone on the golf course.

“I would not wear a mic, no,” Thomas said in his pre-tournament interview at the Charles Schwab Challenge at Colonial CC in Fort Worth. “That’s not me. What I talk about with Jimmy, and what I talk about with the guys in my group is none of anybody else’s business, no offense.”

Thomas, probably like many players, feels that what he and his caddie talk about is their strategy for a hole, or how they think they need to play a shot, or where they want to land a ball. They don’t want to give away any information to the competition.

Rahm has other reasons. He’s still working on controlling his temper.

“I know how I am on the golf course,” he said. “I wouldn’t support it just because they might need a 20-, 30-second difference from live, might be a little bit delayed.”

Speith said he might later on, but probably not this week.

“Could be a distraction, personally, to your play, but I also see what an advantage it could have for the game if you’re able to mic some guys up, especially given there’s no crowd noise,” he added.

All three spent their time away from golf in different ways

Thomas lives in south Florida and was able to play a lot of golf.

“Medalist stayed open, fortunately, so I was able to go play golf with one person to a cart and no caddies and minimal groups and no rakes and stuff like that, but other than that, just kind of trying to stay rested and stay in a routine,” he explained.

Like many people, he worked out at home.

The most difficult part was that his dad couldn’t come out to the course with him because guests weren’t allowed until two weeks ago.

“He came in town last week, and then we were able to get some work in, so I would say that part has been the hardest,” Thomas noted.

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Rahm had concerns early on because of his relatives in Spain.

“They were all fully quarantined. The virus was spreading really, really fast in Spain and a lot of people getting infected,” he said. “I think almost everybody in my family knew somebody that had it and was hospitalized.”

His mother is a midwife and worked through the infection period. He was also worried about his grandmother. But everyone in his family came through it unscathed.

“I mean, it was funny to talk to my dad,” Rahm added. “He told me he couldn’t remember the last time he had breakfast, lunch and dinner at home.”

Spieth’s routine was different. The first month, he took off. Then he decided to treat the rest of the time like coming back after the holidays, the off-season.

“I trained as if it was off-season, but then I didn’t hit a ton of golf balls,” Spieth explained.

After the first month, he said he treated it as an opportunity to work on his game. He had only played five events in 2020 prior to the cessation of play.

“It’s a really good time to get hot as we head into August through the next August when you’ve got seven majors in a 12-month period including a Ryder Cup and a couple FedExCups,” he pointed out.

All three believe that everyone in the field will try to set a good example with social distancing, but want everyone to realize that mistakes could happen here and there.

The most often used word to describe the whole situation, from cancellation of The Players through this week was weird. Particularly having no gallery in attendance.

Jon Rahm had the best idea for that, though.

“I was joking with somebody,” he said. “It would almost be better if they had like the Rickie Fowler commercial, just have speakers on every green, and if you hit a good shot just press play and you hear something and then you move on.”

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