Jordan Spieth’s Wild Players round left him with a lingering, relatable feeling

Jordan Spieth’s second round at the Players Championship was classic Jordan Spieth.

Among his seven birds were a few doozies. On his tee shot on 18, his ninth hole of the day, he hit a tree to the right but the ball curled into the fairway. He continued to do 3. On the par-5 2nd, he hit his drive and missed the fairway. He birdied a 49 footer.

On the par-4 6th, he played “weird golf” but again made a difference on the front of the green. On number 3, he missed a four-footer for birdie.

So, yeah, typical Spieth stuff.

The last hole remained. When Spieth got to the par-5 9th, he was six under for the round and four shots behind the lead. He hit his gun against the trees and had to punch out. Trying to steer it home, Spieth pulled his third shot down the middle of the left fairway and called for a layup. “I don’t know what’s in there,” Spieth told Michael Greller. “I know there is driving distance.” He found the ball behind a tree and ended up with a double-bogey.

The bird-filled day ended with the three-time winner leaving the course with a very relatable feeling: fear of how he finished.

“It’s been an uphill battle, two overs both days. I just played better than that,” Spieth said after his round. “I’ve been playing really well, I’m trying to let the lesson come to me. Don’t force anything. It’s not there yet, but it’s like I’m close enough to where I can do what I did today for a while. So it stinks because to finish like that, I’ll be – some days you wonder if you shot one stroke too bad, but finish with a birdie if you were going to face a fun game.

That frustration is part of golf – a strange, imperfect game played by gluttons for punishment. But there’s no doubt that Spieth’s anger also had to do with the setting.

For the past decade, Pete Dye’s Stadium Course has provided Spieth fits. In his last 10 majors, Spieth has missed six cuts and has finished in the top 20. He’s trying to look at it differently this year. That was successful at times, but he still found himself unable to avoid the Sawgrass landmine he found on each of his final holes in Rounds 1 and 2. That would make Dye smile.

“This place has gotten the best of me in the past, and I’ve let it get to me a few times this week,” Spieth said. “That cost me about four shots, so hopefully it’s not too much to do. But things are really good, and I need to have some kind of patience here even more than other places, and it’s just 13 times in a row I’m going – something takes me here, and I don’t have the patience for that at all.”

Patience will be the final piece of the puzzle that allows Spieth to finally overcome his demons at Sawgrass. He hasn’t found it yet, but everything else is in place for Spieth to find answers to a decade-long absence from a major PGA Tour event.

Through two rounds at TPC Sawgrass, Spieth, who as of this writing was seven off the lead, is ranked 10th in Strokes Gained: Approach and Around the Green. You miss the tee shot and have a little gauge on the green. Spieth hit the ball better on Friday, though. He made five birdies in a row with moments of wild, unusual golf. All of this included a four-under 68 and a chance to make it to Sawgrass for the first time since his top-10 finish, which was a T4 in 2014.

All of that is proof that Spieth is close to being the Spieth of old, or at least the best version of this current iteration of Spieth.

“I do everything well,” he said. “The numbers don’t really show how strong things are. I feel like I’ve hit a lot of shots especially in the last two weeks where I’m putting up, saying I’ve done my job, and then I’m scared of where they end up, short or long or whatever.”

Spieth isn’t even thinking about wrist surgery after the 2024 season. He believes his “weapon” is back on the greens and he’s close to putting it all together. As he tumbled during Friday’s round, Spieth heard. The hole looked big, the irons were tied, he was surviving the “weird golf” moments and the bumpers were going his way.

But as most golfers know, all that matters is the last turn, the last hole. It carries more weight than one.

When asked if he could close out doubles and focus on the positives, Spieth said, “Never. Have you ever played golf?”

“I didn’t feel like I did too bad, so in that sense it wasn’t like I made mistakes in decisions.

Seven birdies, a weekend tee time at The Players and a sense that his best is within his reach should help him, but that double-bogey will remain on his mind until Spieth nails it on Saturday afternoon.

That’s what all golfers do. It’s a challenge Jordan Spieth will repeat on Saturday at TPC Sawgrass, hoping this time he’ll have the patience to find all the answers to Dye’s fair test.