Just over a month after Rory McIlroy completed the Career Grand Slam in nail-biting fashion at Augusta National, Jordan Spieth is gearing up for his eighth attempt to join the club that now includes Gene Sarazen, Ben Hogan, Jack Nicklaus, Gary Player, Tiger Woods and McIlroy.
And naturally, it’s a big talking point in the pre-tournament run-in. But Spieth feels that the conversation is largely fueled by what McIlroy achieved by adding a Masters Green Jacket to his U.S. Open title, his two Wanamaker Trophys, and the Claret Jug.
“I don’t think so,” Spieth answered when asked if the Career Grand Slam had been more on his mind this year than in previous attempts. “It’s been more — I’ve been surprised at — there’s been a number of years I’ve come to the PGA, and no one’s really asked me about it. There’s been some years where it was a story line, I guess.
“It’s funny, I think, if Rory didn’t, then it wouldn’t have been a story line for me here necessarily. I mean, it’s always a story line if I work my way in, but at least ahead of time, I just feel like I’ve been asked about it more than other years, including years where I’ve come in — I want to say ’22 I came in after winning and finishing second back-to-back, which I would have thought would be a time where that would have been one.
“So I’ve kind of been surprised by the dynamic a little bit. But it’s always circled on the calendar. For me, if I could only win one tournament for the rest of my life, I’d pick this one for that reason. Obviously watching Rory win after giving it a try for a number of years was inspiring.
“You could tell it was a harder win than — most of the time he makes it look a lot easier. So that obviously was on the forefront of his mind. Something like that has not been done by many people, and there’s a reason why. But I’d love to throw my hat in the ring and give it a chance come the weekend this week.”
Those years where a Spieth Grand Slam completion weren’t major talking points weren’t taken as any sort of an insult, he argued, and suggested that his lack of form around those times meant that it was only natural that the question was avoided.
“If you’re not in very good form coming into a major — I mean, I had a chance in 2019, and I was not in form,” he said. “I was in the final group on Saturday with Brooks, and I was like, I know what it’s like to have control of my game. I’ve played with Brooks with control of my game, and I see what he’s doing right now, and I don’t have mine. Let’s see if I can fake it these next two days.
“I feel a lot better now than, say, I did in that, but it’s very — I’m not insulted by it. Typically there’s a lot of story lines. I feel like for so many years watching Phil’s at the U.S. Open, there was some, then it wasn’t some, and then he wins the PGA recently, and all of a sudden it becomes a story line in the U.S. Open. It just kind of bounces back and forth within the noise, I guess.”
Spieth’s 2024 was hampered by a wrist injury which led to him missing out on qualification for the PGA Tour’s season-ending Tour Championship and on selection for the US Presidents Cup team – just the second time he’d been overlooked for team selection since his breakthrough 2013 season.
But he now feels that the wrist injury is behind him at long last.
“Less and less as the year has gone on, which is great,” he replied when asked if he still found himself thinking about it. “It’s hard to tell if it was preventing anything that I could or couldn’t do, so I’m not going to say that it’s everything. But just the ease of not worrying about it dislocating, I guess, or subluxing, I think, is the term for this specific, is really nice.
“Just off the course, I’m able to pick my kids up and throw them around, and my wrist doesn’t dislocate. You can imagine that’s a good feeling.
“So when I’m golfing, I haven’t really been thinking about it the last couple of months. I wake up in the morning, I’m very aware I had surgery. My left feels twice the size of my right for about a half hour every morning. They say that stops about a year post-op, and it’s getting — some days are better than others. I haven’t exactly given it a lot of rest in the last few months, and I’m sure that will help once we hit the off-season.
“It’s still there, very much so. I’m still aware, but I’m not worried about the same thing happening anymore thanks to the doctors that I’ve had and their rehab process that I went through. It was a lot of hard work. Last fall and into the winter, physically and mentally, it was one of the hardest things that I’ve had to do.
“Anybody who’s come back from an injury, you want to be out there doing more and more and more, especially when I — it’s not like I was top five in the world last year, right? I felt like I was going to be coming from behind, and I wasn’t able to do much while other guys were getting better. So just a hard, hard process to be patient with, especially for me.
“It tested every bit of what I could do, and I went by the book. By the time I was able to play, I think I played well and was kind of in contention in Phoenix, and I was just like, man, I am just incredibly grateful just to be back out here doing this because there was months where you’re going through the process wondering if or when that would happen again.
“I didn’t expect this year to be a ridiculous year. It’s going to be something that I needed to work slowly towards with a long-term outlook, and I think it’s going really well so far. I’ve got a big stretch and a lot of good opportunities coming up and a lot less distractions on it than I had last year.”
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