‘Never experienced anything like this’: Jordan Spieth at troubling crossroads

s is the case with Rory McIlroy’s next major win, Jordan Spieth’s next win of any kind feels close — yet so far away.

Spieth’s last PGA Tour victory came 28 months ago at the RBC Heritage at Harbour Town. The two-plus years since have been marked by highs (T4 at the 2023 Masters; another near-win at the RBC; his usual short-game wizardry); lows (14 missed cuts and a disqualification); swing changes (his face is far more shut at the top than it was in his 2015 prime, an adjustment Brandel Chamblee said in January was “one of the more baffling things I think I’ve seen since I’ve been sitting in this chair for 20 years”); and, perhaps most impactfully, nagging issues with his left arm and wrist that he has been fighting to varying degrees since he chipped a bone in his left hand in 2018, an injury that he later admitted he’d never properly addressed.

For years, Spieth didn’t speak much of his condition; he was reluctant to use it as an excuse. But over time the complications that came with it became impossible to ignore. In May 2023, Spieth withdrew from the Byron Nelson, in his hometown of Dallas, citing acute pain in his left wrist. He played in the PGA Championship at Oak Hill a week later but still wasn’t right.

In October of that year, in the wake of the Ryder Cup, Spieth reaggravated his wrist again while lifting a toaster at his home. “I wasn’t doing anything either time that I hurt it that should have caused what happened,” Spieth said the following month of the two flare-ups. After several tests, doctors diagnosed him with ulnar nerve damage. At long last, some medical clarity. “It makes me think, staying on top of this I can get to structurally doing what I need to be doing to be at my best,” Spieth said then.

Subpar’s Colt Knost and Drew Stoltz are joined by former PGA Tour player Smylie Kaufman who breaks down the current state of Jordan Spieth’s game.

Spieth spent the off-season trying to heal, undergoing physical therapy up to four times a week. At the first event of the 2024 season, The Sentry, Spieth was asked how his wrist was feeling. “It’s good,” he said. “It’s not so much the wrist, it’s kind of up in the arm and managing that. The wrist was kind of just what took the fall from some ulnar nerve stuff.” He added, “I would say from December on it’s been really solid, I’ve been on the right path.”

And yet the wrist continued to trouble him — and his game.

After a promising start to the season (3rd in Maui, T6 in Phoenix), Spieth began to struggle, missing cuts at the Players, Valspar and Masters. A week after the Masters, at the RBC, Spieth described his injury to the AP as “a come-and-go thing,” adding, “I could oddly enough twist in the wrong way getting off the ground, and I couldn’t play tomorrow. But I could play the next day.” He added, “the ulnar side of the wrist is hard to heal.”