Jordan Spieth: “Trying to get back to my DNA.”
Jordan Spieth, the only man in recent history who had a semi-realistic chance at the single season grand slam, had his game go completely off the rails. So far off that his world ranking dropped from being No. 1 in August of 2015 to No. 82 in December of 2020.
It was almost unthinkable for the phenom who had become the first teenager to win on the PGA Tour since 1931.
In total, Spieth held the top position for 26 weeks, 20 of them in a row. Then he caught mono. Started chasing distance. Lost who he was.
While we all think we have seen glimpses of the winner we once knew, we also know, and he has said, that his game is not quite back to the level it was. But he’s closing in on it. Currently, he’s trying to return to what got him to the PGA Tour and what got him to the winner’s circle time after time.
"“I’m really just kind of looking back to my DNA from high school, college, into the first few years on tour.” — Jordan Spieth"
“I’m honestly just trying to get back to my DNA,” he said before the Sentry Tournament of Champions at Kapalua. “I got away from that, and I was swinging in front of my body and just, there’s a lot of specifics, I guess, but I’m really just kind of looking back to my DNA from high school, college, into the first few years on tour.”
A few times in the last two years, he has explained that he has been trying to correct from the point of impact back to create a swing that hits the ball flush and in the direction he wants to go.
“As far as the big components, really being able to get through the ball, committed through the ball, get kind of my body working better where your body’s hitting it and you’re not relying as much on your hands,” Spieth rambled, describing what he’s been trying to do lately. “It’s really hard to play on the PGA Tour trying to rely on timing (saving shots with his hands), and it’s very hard to stay consistent for four rounds.”
In the recent off-season, he developed more confidence in his play. He finally felt that what he was doing was making him better.
“Instead of going out, getting frustrated over a couple days, and trying something new, I stuck with the exact same game plan,” he said, adding that the goal was to just get one percent better each day. That, he thinks, will reap rewards down the road.
Last year, he said he got to the point where he had four consistent rounds on several occasions, but didn’t close out the tournament.
“If you told me what last year was going to be at this time last year I would have said I’m obviously very pleased, but I can also look back and say, I really wish I had won three or four events, given the amount of times I had a chance on Sunday.”
He was second at the British Open to Collin Morikawa, second to Jason Kokrak at the Charles Schwab, third to Daniel Berger at AT&T Pebble Beach and fourth to Brooks Koepka at Waste Management where he actually tied the lead after the third round by shooting a 10-birdie, 61. So there were some big coulda-shouldas in his last season.
This week is the beginning of a new year, although not a new season. However, there’s always a mental reset in January for golfers. Playing Kapalua is something many golfers look forward to, and Spieth is among them. He said he had thought about it during the final round of the Valero Texas Open last spring.
“I had to kind of throw it out of my head because I had thought about it a couple other times during previous events in the season when I had leads on Sunday, and it just adds a little extra to it when you’re not, when you take your focus off of just closing out a tournament,” he admitted. “It was something I mentioned, I want to say within minutes of winning at Valero.”
So, is he ready? Spieth is a past champion at Kapalua, doesn’t mind the wind, and loves grainy Bermuda greens. Will he stroll into the victory circle on Sunday? He certainly hopes so.