Jordan Spieth knocks the driver off the deck and then does Spieth stuff

It’s often said about good, smart golf that you want to be boring: middle of the fairway, middle of the green, two putts, maybe one will fall.

As you probably know, Jordan Spieth doesn’t play this type of golf.

Spieth started his third round at the Valspar Championship about as well as he could have wished, hitting an iron on the par-5 at eight feet and converting the look for Eagle and moving into a share of the lead.

He then missed two of the next three greens in classic Spieth fashion, but got up and down each time as overnight leader Adam Schenk bogeyed behind him to give the 13-time PGA Tour winner the solo lead .

As he played his fifth hole, the colorful Texan delivered another classic “spiethism” to us fans.

Even after hitting his drive 298 yards — the longest of the day on the nearly 600-yard par-5 — Spieth still had 283, uphill around the dogleg to the hole. Instead of doing what all but three other players did and hung up on Saturday, Spieth again grabbed the big racquet to head onto the green.

The 29-year-old roasted a low draw right at the flag. The ball landed on the slope of the front left green bunker, but right in front of the flag.

Spieth immediately went after his ball, but when he had climbed the hill and had a view of the green, he turned in shock to caddy Michael Greller.

“Oh wow!” exclaimed Spieth. “I had a mile the wrong line.”

He was probably trying to use the slope to the right of the green to swing his ball onto the putting surface. Now he was faced with a short-sided bunker shot downhill.

But we’re talking about Jordan Spieth. The Texan threw his sandstone straight into the air and watched it land like a sack of flour just short of the hole. It seeped just over six yards, giving him a two-shot lead at that point.

Routine birdie, nothing to see here.

With Spieth chasing his first title since last spring, it’s a good bet that this won’t be the end of his eccentricity for the week.

Jack Hirsch

Golf.com editor

Jack Hirsh is Associate Editor at GOLF. A native of Pennsylvania, Jack is a 2020 graduate of Penn State University with degrees in broadcast journalism and political science. He was the captain of his high school golf team and still *tries* to stay competitive with the local amateurs. Before joining GOLF, Jack worked for two years at a television station in Bend, Oregon, primarily as a multimedia journalist/reporter, but he also produced, hosted and even presented the weather. He can be reached at jack.hirsh@golf.com.