Jordan Spieth took a major step forward in his comeback from wrist surgery on Saturday at the WM Phoenix Open.
Spieth fired a 4-under 67 for his second consecutive bogey-free round at TPC Scottsdale, following his 65 from Friday. While Spieth is still five shots off Thomas Detry’s pace, he is tied for second and ended a lengthy drought in the process.
To find the last time Spieth had back-to-back rounds without dropping a shot, one must go back to Rounds 2-3 of the 2024 Sentry, over 13 months ago. It was also Spieth’s third bogey-free round of the year, matching his total from all of last season.
Spieth’s best par save of the day arguably came at the last. Spieth drove his ball into the left coffin bunkers at the par-4 18th and then short-sided himself in the right-front greenside bunker, only to blast out to 16 feet and roll in the clutch putt.
“It was a messy hole,” Spieth said. “I didn’t play a lot of messy holes, but I was looking at the board, and I thought it was maybe either the last group or I could even drop to the third-to-last group depending on how the finish was, which is a big deal, especially when you’re down [five] shots. I thought that was big.
“I knew that I hadn’t made a bogey in a while, so I wanted to keep that streak alive.”
Spieth played his first tournament since Aug. 21 surgery to rebuild the sheath in his left wrist when he teed it up at last week’s AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am. Spieth used the time once he fully recovered to “reset” his golf swing.
“I’m not calling this swing changes,” Spieth told the Associated Press in early January. “These are just a reset into some of the stuff I did that was my DNA, that was super advantageous that I had gotten away from for one reason or another.”
Spieth tied for 69th at Pebble, beating only seven players who completed four rounds – and he had to close in 67 just to do that. But he’s found something at TPC Scottsdale, a place where he’s posted three top-6 finishes in his last four trips.
Ahead of schedule in his comeback?
“Oh, way ahead,” Spieth answered. “Bad days are going to happen in this process. Today, I felt a little off. I wasn’t loading right. I wasn’t getting positionally where I was getting yesterday other than maybe three or four swings the whole day. To be able to shoot a score like this where the pins were – and they were a lot harder today – so to be able to do that with not my best stuff makes me feel even better because it takes a little bit of pressure off maybe trying to be perfect and coming back.
“It’s a long road ahead. This is certainly ahead of schedule for this week. I’ve had a good history here, so we’ll see how I continue to progress on other courses, but tomorrow, I’m going to have to hit more fairways because I’m going to have to hit it closer to try to catch Thomas.”
Another drought of Spieth’s is still ongoing; he hasn’t won since the 2022 RBC Heritage. While that’s not likely to end this Sunday, Spieth notes that on TPC Scottsdale, anything can happen, especially on the risk-reward back nine.
“If he doesn’t fill it up tomorrow and posts a round of even a couple under, it’s definitely catchable,” Spieth said of Detry. “But if he shoots 5 [under], then that’s probably out of the picture.”