Safeway Open: inconsistency continues to plague Jordan Spieth

Friday’s round for Jordan Spieth at the Safeway Open featured six birdies, which is good news. However, it also had its not-so-good moments.

Jordan Spieth continued his recent pattern at the Safeway Open on Friday. Unfortunately for Spieth, it’s not a pattern that’s producing a ton of great results.

Remember that Spieth is a very, very accomplished player. He was the 2013 PGA Tour Rookie of the Year. He won his first major in 2015 when he claimed the green jacket by winning the Masters. Later that year, he won his first U.S. Open. That same year, he was second in the PGA Championship. He earned PGA Tour Player of the Year honors that season.

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Spieth added a third major title in 2017 by winning the Open Championship. That same season, he won the Vardon Trophy and the Byron Nelson Award, each for the second time.

He has 11 PGA Tour titles to his credit. However, that Open Championship title he earned at Royal Birkdale was the last event that Spieth won.

That’s a drought of more than three years for a guy who won 11 times in his first five years on tour. Yes, Spieth has reworked his swing during that time, but three years should have been plenty of time to get in the groove with that kind of adjustment.

Lately, Spieth has been plagued by inconsistency. That bugaboo reared its ugly head again on Friday at the Safeway Open.

Spieth opened play on the back nine and after a par on the 10th hole, he birdied the par-3 11th hole to get under par on his round. But he immediately bogeyed the 12th hole to slip back to even par on the day.

After three consecutive pars, Spieth birdied the par-5 16th hole, then birdied the par-4 17th hole. He appeared to have things turned in the right direction. A par on 18 gave him a 2-under par 34 on the front side.

But Spieth was unable to carry the momentum as he made the turn. A bogey on the first hole dropped him back to 1-under on his round. Two pars followed before he got that shot back with a birdie on the fourth hole. Spieth was 2-under on his round at that point.

He would birdie the fifth hole to get to 3-under for the first time during his Friday round. After a par on the sixth hole, Spieth birdied the par-3 seventh to get to 4-under on his round and 3-under for the event. At that point, he was inside the cut line.

On the eighth hole, Spieth had a tap-in for par, leaving just the ninth hole between him and the cut. Turns out, that was not an ideal situation.

Spieth got into trouble off the tee, had to take a drop, and ended up making a double bogey on one of the easiest holes on the course. That ended his day, and his week, as he shot a 70 on Friday and is 1-under for the event.

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If we’re being honest, this is not a very strong field this week, with many players electing to take the week off before next week’s U.S. Open. Spieth should not only make the cut here, he should be contending to win. But as long as this inconsistency is present, that’s not going to happen for a guy who was, at one point in his career, the best player in the world.

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