PONTE VEDRA BEACH, FLORIDA | Had the great American artist Jackson Pollock been a golfer, his name might have been Jordan Spieth.
Pollock is known for his abstract expressionist paintings in which he would pour paint onto a canvas and, by using his fingers or something other than a brush along with his genius, create chaotic and captivating works that define his rare brilliance.
That’s how Spieth tends to play golf, the antithesis of the paint-by-numbers approach that can go a long way. Combined with a genuineness as real as a Texas summer, that has made him one of the most magnetic players of his generation.
Though the angst about sagging PGA Tour TV viewership is receding, it is no coincidence that Spieth’s struggles in recent years created a character void that has been refreshed by his encouraging, if still incomplete, return to form.
On Thursday morning as the first round of the Players Championship came to life in pristine springtime conditions at TPC Sawgrass’ Stadium Course, Spieth’s name flashed on leaderboards which conveyed the numbers but could not fully deliver the sometimes frenetic, sometimes soothing manner in which he constructed his 2-under-par 70, a score good enough to raise the prospect of Spieth playing himself deeper into contention on Friday afternoon.
It has been a decade since Spieth ripped across golf’s sky like a comet, winning the first two majors of 2015 and nearly winning the third at the Open Championship, marrying skill and star power like few others.
Spin the story forward and it has been nearly three years since Spieth has won a PGA Tour event and he is working his way back from wrist surgery last year, repairing an issue that did not entirely cause his decline but did not help.
That’s why Spieth’s start Thursday morning crackled through the soft morning air because it was Jordan doing Jordan things, both good and not so good.
Starting at the par-4 10th, Spieth birdied his first hole then holed a 53-foot bunker shot for an eagle at the par-5 11th. He surrendered those three strokes with a double bogey-bogey run at the 14th and 15th holes before chipping in from 77 feet for another eagle, this one at the par-5 16th.
When Spieth made the turn, he was 2-under par with two pars. His second nine was more mundane, seven pars to go with a birdie and a bogey when the ultimate goal may be finding a sweet spot between the two halves.
A Pollock hanging beside a Norman Rockwell painting.
“I feel like I’d like it to be boring,” Spieth said when asked about the volatility of his first nine holes.
Spieth’s game is a work in progress. He’s six months removed from surgery on his left wrist, which kept him from gripping a club for two months thereafter. He has already posted a pair of top-10 finishes in four starts and the sparkle seems to be returning to Spieth’s game.
“I’m doing a really good job of battling it. I had to kind of rebuild stuff from a few months of nothing, and it wasn’t like I was coming back to something that was already great right before. I was in some really bad habits for a year and a half.” – Jordan Spieth
The next step will be sustaining that sparkle.
“When I stand over it and I’m not trying to avoid things. Instead I’m picking a target and I’m very confident it’s going to start on that target and move to where I want it. So pretty much where most everyone of these guys are playing from, I would like to get there,” Spieth said Thursday.
“I’m doing a really good job of battling it. I had to kind of rebuild stuff from a few months of nothing, and it wasn’t like I was coming back to something that was already great right before. I was in some really bad habits for a year and a half.”
As Spieth took inventory on his first round, he liked most of what he did but lamented a bad swing that led to a pull into trouble on his second shot at the par-5 ninth (his 18th hole) that cost him the chance at a closing birdie.
It offered a moment of Spieth performance art, part of the joy in watching him.
He stared skyward when his ball came to rest under trees, leaving him with no chance to get his third shot close. Then Spieth bent at the waist and spoke to the ground in case it was listening.
It was a moment when Spieth succumbed to temptation, believing he could conjure up some magic, only to regret his decision. Otherwise, there were a few loose swings but, especially at this stage in his year, Spieth accepts those are going to happen.
“All the volatility was just in those first five, six holes and from there it was just close to being really good,” Spieth said.
For the past 10 years, Spieth has been at or near the center of the game but like his buddies Justin Thomas and Rickie Fowler, what once seemed to come easily is now more elusive.
Spieth wasn’t eligible for the Arnold Palmer Invitational, a signature event last week, and didn’t receive a sponsor exemption. He caught some flak for saying he needed to play better when he was injured but he understands his current place in the hierarchy.
“It was tough watching, but I didn’t earn my way into the event, so it’s a little easier to watch that way,” said Spieth, who spent last week at home in Dallas.
This week, at a place known for the volatility and circumstance it creates, Spieth was presented with another blank canvas and the painting has begun.