PONTE VEDRA BEACH, FLORIDA | Jordan Spieth stood behind a microphone taking questions – a few minutes after a double-bogey finish ruined his Friday the way a blood stain can ruin a white shirt – while his right hand moved in and out of his pants pocket like it was searching for a release valve to open.
The full Jordan Spieth experience is like nothing else in golf and the second round at the Players Championship, played under mostly blue skies accented by a gentle breeze, was one more page in the Spieth adventure story that can feel at times like a Disney ride.
On the scorecard, Spieth signed for a 68 that, coupled with his first-round 73, left him 3-under par and balancing the satisfaction of making six birdies in a seven-hole stretch on Friday with the acid-reflux reaction to finishing both rounds with double bogeys.
“It was just a bummer, both days to finish with doubles. I just played better than that,” said Spieth, who aside from a T4 finish in his first Players Championship 12 years ago has had an unfulfilling relationship with the Stadium Course at TPC Sawgrass.
There are enough encouraging signs in Spieth’s play to believe that the breakthrough is close. He hasn’t won in nearly four years, a fallow spell created in large part by a lingering wrist injury that necessitated surgery in 2024, but there have been sparks that might soon produce a proper fire.
Spieth arrived at the Stadium Course after consecutive top-12 finishes but the disconnect between his performance-art style of golf and a layout defined by sharp edges and severe penalties is undeniable. Spieth has the pedigree of a Players champion but whether it’s impatience or an inability to avoid the big numbers, his best intentions have gone unrewarded.
“This place has gotten the best of me in the past, and I let it get the best of me a couple times this week already. That cost me probably four shots, so hopefully it’s not too much to make up,” Spieth said.
“But things are really good, and I need to have even more … patience here than I do other places, and it’s just 13 times in a row I continue to just – something gets me here, and I just don’t quite have the patience for it.”
With the benefit of a Friday afternoon to let the day sink in, Spieth was asked if he would be able to set aside the bitter finish and focus on all the good work he did. “Never,” he said.
Late on Thursday, Spieth hit his tee shot off the toe on the dangerous par-4 18th hole, setting in motion a closing double bogey to sleep on.
Early Friday morning, Spieth found himself scrambling to make a bogey on his first hole (the par-4 10th), giving it the look of another lost weekend. But Spieth doesn’t typically play linear golf, the ebbs and flows of his work bringing to mind the acclaimed film “One Battle After Another.”
Starting at the par-5 16th, Spieth made six birdies in seven holes, his only miss coming when he couldn’t coax a 4-foot birdie putt into the hole at the par-3 third. At that point, Spieth had shouldered his way onto the leaderboard, close enough to the leaders to think about his weekend opportunities.
He was at his scrambling best after hitting his tee shot into a steep, grass-covered bank on the par-4 sixth hole. He gouged his second short of the green, left his third on the front fringe 26 feet away and, Spieth being Spieth, holed the putt for a par to keep the momentum rolling.
“That was a bit of a bonus. The hole started to look big,” Spieth said.
The par-5 ninth should have offered Spieth the chance at a closing birdie. Instead, Spieth put his tee shot in the left trees, punched out with his second and pull-hooked his third shot so badly he was asking caddie Michael Greller for another ball before the original landed.
The shot caromed off a live oak branch and stayed in play but with not many options. He chopped his fourth into a greenside bunker, blasted out and walked away steaming for the second straight day.
“I’ve been playing really well, trying to let the course come to me. Don’t have to force anything. It’s not quite there yet, but it’s like close enough to where I can do what I did today for a while,” Spieth said.
“So [it] just kind of stinks because to finish like that … some days you wonder if you shot one stroke worse but you finished with a birdie if you would actually be happier. It’s a weird deal, weird game.”
With the benefit of a Friday afternoon to let the day sink in, Spieth was asked if he would be able to set aside the bitter finish and focus on all the good work he did.
“Never,” he said.
“I didn’t feel like I did too much wrong, so in that sense it wasn’t like I made any decision errors. It was execution. I can swallow that a lot easier.”