Jordan Spieth on Winning: “I wanted that monkey off my back.”

After nearly four years in the golf wilderness, Jordan Spieth is to the point where he thinks he can get back to his former self.

“It was nice to kind of, I guess, feel normal towards the end of the round yesterday,” he said to media on Monday at the Masters, meaning it was normal for him to be contending and having nerves and winning rather than not. “It felt like me, and that’s where I’m supposed to be, and this is who I am.”

It must have been a great relief for him to see that all the worry, all the time on the range, the bleeding hands, the struggle to recapture what he once had was finally paying off. Despite the victory, he said he’s not quite there yet. He thinks he’s only about half-way back to where he needs to be.

His swing wasn’t the best it’s felt, Spieth noted, and that’s important because he knows there’s a next level he can reach with additional hard work. He’s been there and he knows he’s not there now, but he can see it from where he currently is. So where did he go wrong?

“I just got off mechanically to where I essentially was late into the golf ball and just had bad, inconsistent deliveries that led to inconsistent golf,” he explained about the majority of the recent past. Being late to the ball caused his resulting shots to be wayward.

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Let’s face it, he always had the odd whoopsie shot during tournaments, hitting the practice range at the British Open being just one of the most flagrant examples. That’s not something any golfer wants to see happen, but it does. Tiger Woods once bounced a shot on top of the clubhouse at Firestone CC when he was trying to hit a 9-iron to the 9th green. A cornucopia of rules came into figuring out where he could drop.

While he’s been doing everything he can to reclaim his once spot-on ball striking, he never gave up on his team. Like the gentleman he is reputed to be, Spieth credited them for helping him get back to this point.

“I believe in my team. They have proven themselves to be the best in the world,” he said.

They certainly got him to No. 1 and to three major championships and a FedExCup in near record time. He’s not throwing anybody under the bus. He’s sticking to the plan they have created. Now they have a new challenge which Spieth described as “how can we all get a little bit better,” which should bring him to the victory circle more frequently in the future. The main issue he will face is that the competition landscape has changed a bit since then. More new players, like Collin Morikawa. More tough challengers, like Bryson DeChambeau and Brooks Koepka.

At least he is over the winning hump. Before winning the Valero Texas Open, Spieth had two 54-hole leads in 2021 that he was unable to convert. One was in Phoenix, and the other was at the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am. As Spieth noted, when a player has the 54-hole lead, he’s expected to win, and he did not win either of those tournaments.

Certainly, Spieth had expectations based on past experience. However, almost like relearning the winning skill, it took him one more try with a 54-hole lead to convert.

“I wanted that monkey off my back of it just being a while out of the winner’s circle,” he said.

During the rebuilding process, Spieth admitted he had to overcome his impatience to excel at a faster rate. He’s been frustrated with the length of time it has taken him to regain control of his swing. However, his putts are falling again, and this week, with the treacherous greens at Augusta National, that’s one big advantage.

How will Spieth do at the Masters? He loves Augusta National and the Masters. Sometimes attitude is everything. Augusta National is wide open in many places and has a little tree trouble here and there. If he can keep it somewhere close to the fairway, his iron game and putting prowess mean he’s at least a contender.

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