PALM BEACH GARDENS, Fla. (AP) — Jordan Spieth is playing this week for a lot of reasons.
Among them: It was unseasonably cold in Dallas and he grew tired of hitting balls off mats in those temperatures, he simply needs to play some golf to continue gearing up for the Masters and he’s got some ground to make up after falling out of the top 50 in the world ranking.
So, for the first time since Spieth's junior days in 2009, the start of the PGA Tour's Florida swing at PGA National is on his calendar. Spieth will play the course this week for the first time as a pro, after a last-minute decision to enter the Cognizant Classic.
“I hadn’t played much, and then I’m not sure exactly what I’m going to be able to play going forward,” Spieth said Tuesday as he prepared for what will be his fourth start since wrist surgery sidelined him for months. “I think this year’s schedule is just a little bit up in (the air) for me as I try to get my feet under me. I also am playing a bit of catch-up. I don’t like finishing outside the top 50 with the new system.”
Spieth knows he's playing in The Players Championship in a couple of weeks and at Augusta National in early April. Everything else, like he said, is a bit uncertain, so he figured the smart move was to get more rounds under his belt.
And that's why PGA National became his next move.
“You’ve got to drive the ball, obviously, precise, but tough golf courses in the wind on Bermuda, that’s kind of what I grew up on,” Spieth said.
His left wrist issues began in May 2023 when the extensor carpi ulnaris tendon, or ECU, would pop out of its sheath. Spieth wound up getting the sheath surgically rebuilt on Aug. 21 in Colorado, and he took his time recovering — waiting nearly 12 weeks to hit any balls and about an additional month before playing an actual round.
The injury was an odd thing. Spieth iced and taped the wrist after originally being told that surgery probably wasn't an option. It would dislocate on its own, Spieth said — he likened it to a noncontact injury, “just very weird,” he said — and he learned how to squeeze the wrist with his right hand and pop the sheath back into place.
“I wish I had done something earlier,” Spieth said.
He tied for 69th at Pebble Beach in his first tournament back, tied for fourth at Phoenix the next week — with all four rounds on his card being 68s or lower — and then missed the cut at Genesis.
The three-start, three-week stretch was a success. The game was getting there and the wrist survived.
“I had some real experiences that tell me that everything is going to get better,” Spieth said. “I’m just trying to find the right balance of rest and playing. I rested it for six days straight last week, and I came back, and it was way worse the first day. It was 25 degrees, and I was hitting off a mat. But it was still worse. ... It's trying to find that right balance on these full days."
The balance is being found, and his decision last week to play Cognizant — he entered on Friday, the day the field was set — gives the tournament another big name, something that has been in short supply at PGA National in recent years mostly because of where it sits on the schedule.
None of the top 16 players in the world ranking are there this week, but five of the top 22 are playing — No. 17 Russell Henley, No. 18 Shane Lowry, No. 19 Sepp Straka, No. 20 Billy Horschel and No. 22 Sungjae Im are all in the field. Henley, Lowry, Straka and Im are all past winners of what was then called the Honda Classic.
This week, Spieth — No. 70 in the world now, but still a huge name — joins them.
“My goal now, as we look towards the Masters, is to try to play difficult golf courses and work my way into contention,” Spieth said. “Just see what I can improve upon by the time we get to Augusta.”
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AP golf: https://apnews.com/hub/golf
http://accesswdun.com/article/2025/2/1288177