Jordan Spieth and Scottie Scheffler both finished T12 at the Genesis Invitational. One, however, was considered an optimistic sign, while the other was a head-scratcher.
The latter was Scheffler, as the world No. 1 finished outside the top 10 for the first time since the 2025 Players Championship, having been on the longest stretch of consecutive top 10s on the PGA Tour in 60 years. Spieth, on the other hand, is still trying to rediscover the form that once appointed him the heir apparent to Tiger Woods, a throne Scheffler has since snatched.
Spieth, a three-time major champion, hasn’t won on the PGA Tour since the 2022 RBC Heritage. After dropping to No. 92 in the world rankings in January 2021, he won later that year and by 2023 was a top 10 player in the world again. But in May 2023, he injured his left wrist and played through the pain. Then, he opted for surgery after his 2024 season, in which he had three top 10s in 22 starts.
Following a recovery that caused him to shelve his clubs for several months, he made 14 starts in 2025 with four top 10s. Now, though, the 32-year-old, ranked No. 82 in the world, says he finally doesn’t feel any lingering pain in his wrist.
So, four starts into his season, which have yielded results of T24-MC-T29-T12, what’s the state of Spieth?
“I feel like I got a lot out of my game,” Spieth said after Round 4 at Riviera. “I thought in this three-week stretch [Phoenix, Pebble Beach, Genesis] each week got better. I found some good clarity on what I needed to be working on, which it takes some rounds to know. I had a lot of off time and I played once [the season-opening Sony Open in January], and then I went to Phoenix and I just got in kind of a little bad rut [missing the cut], and then last week was kind of a bit of a mess in a way.
“All in all—not that this week wasn’t to start, but I was on the same thing the entire time. I didn’t quite get my swing where I wanted it to, so my ball control was probably a ‘C’ and I really managed my game extremely well here.”
But there’s one aspect of his game that he’s really excited about.
“Looking at my spot [putting], like looking up, looking at the hole, my spot seems to be a weapon that I’ve got back,” he said, “which is really nice because I feel solid whether it’s breaking or straight, anything in shorter range. Then that frees you up as you start to expand. So yeah, all three weeks were really good with the putter.”
In 2015, the year Spieth won the Masters and U.S. Open, he was second on Tour in strokes-gained putting. Since then, though, he’s been turbulent on the greens. When the Texan claimed the RBC Heritage four years ago, he joked afterward that he “won without a putter.” But in 2025, he was 65th on Tour in strokes-gained putting, gaining 0.152 strokes. This year? He’s 36th.
What’s behind the turnaround?
“Cameron [McCormick, his longtime coach] had me on a setup adjustment in the very couple days that weren’t frozen in Dallas between Hawaii and Phoenix,” Spieth said. “There’s definitely some work that went into it. There was a change and it’s been really good for me.”
And that has him bullish about the future.
“It’s a big deal,” Spieth said. “I mean, it really, you start as close to the hole as you can and everything that feels comfortable just keeps going further and further away all the way into the long game. So yeah, I feel very confident.”
At Riviera, that mindset on the greens nearly helped Spieth end a top-10 drought that stretches back to the Memorial Tournament last May. But when Cam Young holed a 24-foot birdie on his 72nd hole, that dropped Spieth—and Scheffler—to T12.
Still, Spieth will keep climbing the mountain.
“I like the stretch that’s coming up,” he said. “I’m glad to be going back to Bay Hill [for the Arnold Palmer Invitational] and fortunate they gave me a spot. I don’t ever want to use an exemption again and I was hoping to not have to use that one, but I have a good history there and I feel like I got some momentum.”
And the golf world yearns for the day Spieth returns to the winner’s circle.
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This article was originally published on www.si.com as The Rediscovered ‘Weapon’ That Has Jordan Spieth Excited for What’s Ahead.
