How Jordan Spieth fixes “bad tendencies” in his putting

It’s hard to believe that just two years ago, Jordan Spieth was stuck in a year-long victory crisis.

In January 2021, Spieth was ranked No. 92 in the world – almost four years after his last win, the 2017 Open Championship, and was openly struggling with his game and confidence.

Then, after some solid finishes, he broke through at the 2021 Valero Texas Open for his 12th career win on the PGA Tour. He narrowly missed the Masters where he finished T3.

Last year Spieth added tour win No. 13 at RBC Heritage. In the past two years he has had 17 top 10 finishes and four runners-up finishes. And after a third round 66 at the Players Championship, Spieth lurks again in T15 on the way to the final round.

At this point it seems certain that old Spieth is back in full force – just in time for the upcoming Masters. But one area of ​​Spieth’s game that has been consistently in doubt lately has been his short putting. It’s a deficiency he’s aware of, and after his third round at TPC Sawgrass, he opened up about how hard he’s been working with longtime instructor Cameron McCormick to fix the problem.

“I’ve had a tendency for a few years that’s really bad,” Spieth said of the reasons for his putting work. “It’s been trying to keep finding pathways rather than just feeling down one path, but actually a big one – I’m trying to get my hands out and use my big muscles more. I’ve always been a little handy when it comes to doing good. Many great putters are handy. Rickie Fowler and Tiger use his hands, Ben Crenshaw. So I guess I’ll still have that, but I relied on that.

“If I had pressure or got closer to the hole, I didn’t have time to even out what was going on at the shot,” he continued. “I only put really bad shots on it. Now I feel like I don’t have to save it and it’s very liberating because I feel like it takes more and more repetitions in tournament rounds and it just gets better.”

And what exactly has Spieth been working on? He said he was referring to videos from his best putting days.

“For me, it’s more of an elbow in the left arm than anything,” he said. “I’m just trying to include that left side. Although I might be a little more hunched than when I was at my best, but the traction of everything is spot on – my overhead putting was the best in the world. I have, you know, video, I can just pass, you would think, the punch and the feel to it. That’s really the goal. There is no reason to try anything different than at this time. It feels really good and tight and within 10 this week it was really tight. I did a few outside too.”

Regardless of where he ends up this week, Spieth says he’s happy with his progress.

“I putt really well last week when I first got into a setup and hitting position that I’m working on. This week was just a follow-up,” he said. “It got better every day last week and it’s better this week. So to wrap up that last section, I’m very, I feel like I have momentum, I feel like things are trending.

And as every Spieth fan knows, you have to be careful when your putter gets hot!

Golf.com photographer

As a four-year-old member of Columbia’s first class of female collegiate golfers, Jessica can outperform anyone on the pole top. She can also overtake them in the office, where she is primarily responsible for producing print and online features and overseeing large special projects such as the first style issue of GOLF, which was released in February 2018. Her original interview series, A Round With, debuted in November 2015 and has appeared in both magazine and video form on GOLF.com.