Just as many cricket fans laud Steve Smith as the “best since Bradman”, golf pundits once spoke of Jordan Spieth as the best since Tiger Woods.
Certainly the Texan wunderkind was on a trajectory to put forth a career that could have been spoken about in the same conversation as the living legend.
His early achievements seemed to mirror those of the man who captivated audiences for the better part of three decades.
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Spieth’s 2015 season on tour was remarkable, and undoubtedly the best since Woods’ 2000 dominance.
Golf’s golden child was 21 years old and had the sporting world at his feet.
Then we witnessed what could only be described as a stunning fall from grace that experts – and Spieth himself – have spent years attempting, and failing, to explain.
He has a chance to complete a career grand slam at this week’s PGA Championship but exactly which Jordan Spieth shows up at Quail Hollow is anyone’s guess.
Jordan Spieth was once considered the best since Tiger Woods. Nine
THE RISE
Spieth was 17 years old when he was officially recognised as the best junior golfer in America.
He joined Woods as the only two-time winner of the US Junior Amateur and was the 2009 Rolex Junior Player of the Year.
Already he was drawing comparisons to Woods who, by that time, had won 15 major championships and was widely regarded as the best to ever swing a club.
Such was the hype around Spieth that he was handed an exemption to play the 2010 Byron Nelson Championship – the first time since 1995 such an exemption had been given to an amateur. Woods had been given one in 1993.
In his PGA Tour debut, still only 17 years old, Spieth made the cut – the sixth youngest to ever do so on tour – and finished in a tie for 16th. His star was rising fast.
He became the world’s top ranked amateur in 2012 but such was his talent that he ditched the amateur ranks – and university – to turn pro soon after. Of eight PGA Tour events as an amateur, Spieth had made the cut at five.
He was still a teenager when, in March the following year, Spieth was granted Special Temporary Member status, meaning he had unlimited sponsor exemptions to tournaments. The American brass could see his talent and desperately wanted him to succeed.
In July – two weeks before his 20th birthday – Spieth won his first PGA Tour event; the John Deere Classic which he claimed in a three-way playoff. He was the fourth youngest PGA Tour winner in history and the first teenager to win on tour since 1931. He had officially arrived.
He was named the 2013 PGA Tour Rookie of the Year and selected in Fred Couples’ Presidents Cup team. He had climbed to 22nd on the Official World Golf Rankings (OWGR) by season’s end.
At his Masters debut in April 2014 he led the field during the final round before falling to Bubba Watson. Spieth finished in a tie for second – the youngest runner-up in Masters history.
He had climbed into the OWGR top 10 for the first time and was moving fast.
He was picked in America’s Ryder Cup team – the youngest selection since 1929. In November that year he flew Down Under and won the Australian Open, shooting a course record 63 to win by six strokes against the likes of Rory McIlroy and Adam Scott.
What happened in the months that followed will go down in history as one of the best stretches of form in men’s professional golf.
THE CAREER SEASON
Spieth, then 21, began his 2015 season by winning the Valspar Championship – remarkably just his second PGA Tour win.
In April he returned to the famed Augusta National – where he had fallen short a year earlier – and became the youngest player to lead The Masters at the end of the first round, having shot an 8-under 64. He was one stroke off the course record.
By the end of round two he had broken the course’s 36-hole record and was 14-under. The following day he broke its 54-hold record and was 16-under.
This time Spieth held on and won his maiden major – the coveted Masters green jacket – by equalling Tiger’s 1997 score of 18-under and becoming the first start-to-finish leader of the tournament since 1976. He also broke the record for most birdies scored during the Masters.
Spieth jumped to No.2 on the OWGR.
Jordan Spieth dons the green jacket after winning the 2015 Masters. AAP
In June he won the US Open – his second major. He was the sixth player to ever win the Masters and US Open in the same season. Once again he joined Woods on that list, who had done so in 2002. Spieth was the youngest US Open winner since 1923.
At the PGA Championship – the year’s third major – he finished second behind Aussie champion Jason Day. That runner-up result pushed Spieth to No.1 on the OWGR – he was officially the best men’s golfer on the planet. He was 22 years old.
He went on to win the John Deere Classic and the Tour Championship. Five wins and two majors made it the best individual season since Tiger’s 2000 (nine wins, three majors). He pocketed about USD$22 million in prizemoney for one season’s work.
Spieth won two events in 2016 and in 2017 he clinched his third major – the British Open – among three victories for the year. He was the first man since Jack Nicklaus in 1963 to win three majors before his 24th birthday.
He had won 13 times – including two Australian Open victories – in his first four years on the professional circuit and added three major championships to his cabinet. He was 24 years old and on track to fulfilling his destiny as the second coming of Woods.
THE FALL
The yips.
It’s the dreaded sporting term that is genuine nightmare fuel for golfers. And in 2018 Jordan Spieth well and truly got it.
The Dallas kid who had dominated the PGA Tour in 2015 essentially lost his game barely two years later, and could not get it back.
He failed to win a single event in 2018 and slipped from the top of the rankings to 17th. He also didn’t win a thing in 2019, and by the end of that season he was 59th in the world.
“Last year I was really off with the putting the first half of the year… that started to get better and then the swing got off,” Spieth said in 2019.
Hank Haney – who once coached Woods – publicly declared Spieth was suffering from the yips.
“He’s got to get his putting figured out,” Haney said in 2019.
“I think he will. But he has to. And I think that spilled into the rest of his game.
“When I watch him putt, he visibly has the yips. You watch his hands on short putts and there is a tremor in there. I don’t care if the putt goes in or doesn’t… He had to miss more short putts than anybody on tour.”
The biggest talent in men’s golf of his generation was suddenly a non-competitor.
Spieth has won two events in eight years – the 2021 Texas Open and the 2022 RBC Heritage.
He remains one of the most entertaining players on tour, capable of executing extraordinary shots and then absolutely shanking one moments later. He is animated on course – a rarity for the sport – and commentators often have to apologise for Spieth’s potty mouth.
At this year’s Players Championship he launched a fairway wood in frustration after finding water with his approach shot. It’s not an uncommon sight and his mental state is spoken about more than any other golfer’s on tour.
He suffered a wrist injury in 2023 that hampered him for months and in 2024 – after missing seven cuts on tour – he got it operated on.
THE COMEBACK?
Spieth wants to emulate what Rory McIlroy did last month, and become just the seventh player in history to complete golf’s career grand slam.
He only has the PGA Championship trophy absent from his resume and heads to Quail Hollow this week with a chance to create history.
“It’s always circled on the calendar for me,” Spieth said at Quail Hollow this week.
“If I could only win one tournament the rest of my life I’d pick this one.
“Watching Rory win after giving it a try for a number of years was inspiring.
“(A career grand slam) is something that’s not been done by many people, and there is a reason why.”
He is world No.48 and hasn’t won a tournament in more than three years.
But there is reason to believe Spieth’s form is on an upswing after returning from wrist surgery.
He posted his lowest round on tour since 2021 when he carded 62 to secure a fourth-place finish at the Byron Nelson earlier this month.
Of 11 events this year he has made the cut 10 times and claimed a top-10 finish on three occasions.
That kind of form would suggest he’s as good a chance as anyone to take home the Wanamaker Trophy on Monday morning (AEST).
His competitive spirit is back – if it was ever lost.
He wants to be competing at the top of leaderboards with his close friend Scottie Scheffler, who has been the best men’s golfer in the world in recent years.
“What he’s doing is very inspiring, what he’s been doing is inspiring given it wasn’t that long ago I was definitely better than him, and now I’m definitely not right now and I hate admitting that about anybody,” Spieth said of Scheffler last week.
Tiger Woods won his 15th major at the age of 43. Phil Mickelson won the 2021 PGA Championship – his sixth major championship – at the age of 50.
Spieth is 31 years old.
The obituary for Spieth’s career has been written many times since the halcyon days of 2015 but there may be signs of life yet.
