Jordan Spieth has played golf for a month pain-free and plans to return from wrist surgery at the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am, ending his longest career without competition and viewing his time off as a chance to reset.
“I had bad habits for a long time,” Spieth said in a phone interview Friday. “Even if it was something that would happen or if there is something in my wrist that prevents me from entering certain positions, I don’t have that problem now.
“Taking three months off the turn forces you to come back and wet the concrete.”
He first injured his wrist in May 2023 when the extensor carpi ulnaris tendon (ECU) came out of the sheath. It got to the point where he decided to have surgery on August 21 in Colorado to reconstruct the spine.
Spieth said he went about 12 weeks before hitting balls, then another month before he played his first round.
“I don’t call this change revolutionary,” he said. “This is a reset of some of the things that I did that were in my DNA, that were very beneficial to me that I had left behind for one reason or another.”
Spieth spoke on his way to practice at Trinity Forest in Dallas — “The first time I’ve hit a snow-covered track,” he said — before heading to the Cotton Bowl for the Texas-Ohio State College Football Playoff semifinal.
Still to come are shots from painful spots in a difficult or awkward environment in the basement. But he said that he feels free when he no longer feels the pain of having the club in certain positions or when the club hits the mark.
“One day I hit a gun that should have hurt and it happened,” he said.
He thought about playing next week in the California desert. Instead, his return — a little more than five months since his last tournament — will be at Pebble Beach. It coincides with AT&T’s 40th year as title sponsor, currently the longest-running sponsorship among the championships. Spieth has had a business relationship with AT&T since 2014.
Now it’s a question of getting back among golf’s greats.
Spieth chased a calendar Grand Slam in 2015, when he reached No. 1 in the world, and won three majors before turning 24. He first realized something was wrong with his wrist in 2018, and he missed the Tour Championship four times in the end. seven years.
“I guess I try to look at the big picture,” he said. “I don’t want to put too much pressure on a hot start. I want to get back into the rhythm. This is the longest I’ve gone between championship rounds.”
His plan is to take three straight weeks — which equates to about 18 rounds — and see how his wrist feels before resuming the regular schedule leading up to the Masters.
He is ranked No. 70 in the world, having dropped from No. 43 when he underwent surgery, and failed to advance to the first round of the PGA Tour postseason. That means he’ll need a sponsor’s release at signing events, which could be a problem given his power.
Spieth first rose to fame in 2013 at the age of 20 when he went from not having a PGA Tour card to playing in the Presidents Cup in six months. Even last year, when he was in the mix only once, he managed to finish in 5th place in the Player Impact program.
Now he’s entering his 13th season — “I’d rather say I’m 31,” Spieth said — and he’s seen enough to see the depth on the PGA Tour is stronger than ever and it’s rare now to see major success on the back burner. golfers are 40 years old.
Tiger Woods, Phil Mickelson and Henrik Stenson are the only players 40 or older to win a major in the past 10 years.
His current goals are the PGA Championship to complete his career Grand Slam and The Players Championship. “I feel like you’ve won golf if you’ve won all five,” he said.
But his comeback — this reset he’s talking about — is about getting back to a high level of play.
“I think big goals for myself, I want to feel like I’m stepping on the tee and I know I’m one of the best golfers in the world – I don’t doubt that when I step on the tee,” he said. “I want things to be in a place where I feel consistent enough to believe that day in and day out. It has to do with being in runs where you finish in the top 10, top 15 every week.
“I know that feeling. That’s the feeling I want to get back to.”
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