Jordan Spieth again left mixed feelings in the second round of THE PLAYERS Championship. The Texan carded another competitive round (68 strokes for a total of three under par) on the demanding layout of the TPC Sawgrass, but he finished with a double bogey that left a distinctly bitter aftertaste. Once again, his card did not fully reflect the level of play that, according to him, he is showing.
“It’s a shame. Both days I’ve finished with a double bogey and I think I’ve played better than that”, Spieth summed up after completing the day. The American insisted that his golf is on the right track, even better than the numbers show: “I’ve been playing really well. I’m trying to let the course come to me, without forcing anything”.
For much of the round, Spieth moved freely on one of the most demanding courses on the calendar. There were particularly solid stretches, with high-quality shots and a feeling of control. In fact, he even felt that the course “felt big”, a common expression among golfers when the game flows and the hole seems easier.
That moment came after the 6th hole. “It was almost a bonus. The hole started to seem big, but I knew the 7 and the 8 were going to be tough”, he explained. His strategy then was simple: “Play normal golf: fairways, greens and then attack the par fives”. However, isolated errors punished him again. Spieth acknowledged that he only made a couple of bad swings during the round, but on a course like Sawgrass that usually has consequences. “Today I made a couple of bad swings. I got lucky with one and not with the others”, he commented.
Spieth’s shot that changed the finish
One of those moments came with a poor drive that ended up hitting a tree after trying to draw a hook from the tee on the 2nd hole. “I hit it a bit with the tip and it hit the tree”, he explained. Afterwards he had to limit the damage by playing a 7-iron and an 8-iron to try to save the hole in three shots to the green.
He also experienced the opposite, when a bounce off the trees on the 18th brought the ball back into play. “It was a phenomenal bounce”, he admitted with a laugh. “Rickie asked me if I had called the bank… and no. Not only did it return to play, it also moved forward”. That bit of fortune allowed him to maintain the rhythm in that stretch of the round, where he said he had hit “a lot of really good shots”.
Spieth insisted that his statistics do not reflect how solid he is playing. “I’m doing everything right. The numbers don’t show how solid my game has been”, he explained. According to the 2015 Masters champion, many approach shots have been better than what his position on the green ultimately showed.
Even so, he regrets those two moments that have affected his rounds in the tournament: “Yesterday I hit the drive on the 18th and today I carded a 7 on one of the easiest holes on the course. They are two swings I simply should have missed the other way”.
Now recovered from his wrist injury
Among the positive news for Spieth is his physical condition. After the wrist problems that affected part of his previous season, he now feels free of it. “It’s fantastic. I don’t think much about the wrist”, he explained. “It’s been great to be able to work in the pre-season without having to worry about rehabilitation”. The American senses a clear trend in his game: “Things are improving every week”.
Spieth also acknowledged that the Sawgrass course has not historically been kind to him. “This place has beaten me many times”, he admitted. On this occasion, he believes that a lack of patience has cost him around four shots. But the plan for the weekend is clear. With softer greens and without worrying about the cut, his mindset changes completely. “When I hit the green at 17 I thought: now it’s attack mode. We’re not thinking about making the cut, we’re chasing the leaders”, he explained.
And he left a phrase that perfectly sums up the mentality of any golfer after a round full of highs and lows. When asked if later he would think about the positives and forget the ending, he replied wryly: “Have you never played golf? You know perfectly well how this works…”.
