On 21 August last year, it was Jordan Spieth‘s last official competition round. A few days after closing his season at the Fedex St Jude Championship, the Texan confirmed he had undergone surgery to try to alleviate the unusual wrist injury that had been bothering him for some time.
From there, he began a recovery process that prevented him from hitting a ball for three months, and he had to add another thirty days to complete a full training round.
The ‘wonder boy’ has already announced his return date. He plans to return to competition at the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am, which begins on 30 January, precisely at the tournament that will also mark the return of the World Number One, Scottie Scheffler.
Jordan wants to shine again. The three-time Majors winner knows what he’s capable of and that he’s been playing below his desired level for too long. Spieth’s last victory was at the RBC Heritage in 2022. Two seasons ago, he achieved seven top tens and only three last year. He is currently ranked 70th in the world ranking, and his last victory in a Major was at the Open Championship in 2017. These are not the figures he was accustomed to.
“I believe in high goals, feeling like I’m on the tee and knowing I’m one of the best golfers in the world,” says the American golfer. “I want things to be consistent enough to believe it day after day. It’s about being in streaks where you finish in the top ten or fifteen every week. I know that feeling, and that’s the feeling I want to get back to.”
To achieve this, the Texan acknowledges he must regain his essence in the swing, and he has been working on it over the past month: “I’ve had some bad habits for a long time, and although the wrist issue is something that would have happened to me anyway, there was something causing me not to be able to get into certain positions, now I don’t have that problem.”
Spieth seeks to smooth out some swing issues that contributed to frequent wrist problems in recent years. The most recent injury occurred in May 2023 when a tendon in his wrist slipped out of its sheath, and he finally underwent surgery on 21 August to reconstruct the sheath.
It’s not about any revolution or doing something new in his way of hitting the ball: “It’s not a swing change, I need to reset and do some of the things that were part of my identity, that helped me a lot and that, for one reason or another, I had been moving away from.”
After three months without hitting the ball, Spieth described his swing as “wet cement” upon returning to the practice field. Slowly but surely, Jordan knows the way back. We’ll have to see if 2025 will be the year of his return to the winner’s circle. The Ryder is also at stake.