Jordan Spieth offers hopeful injury news. But work is ahead 

Jordan Spieth says a surgery to his left wrist “went smoothly.” 

Via a 54-word message posted to his social media channels on Saturday, the three-time major winner said he underwent the procedure last week. Two weeks ago, after he finished his PGA Tour season at the FedEx St. Jude Championship, Spieth said he would have the work done, though he was light on specifics, saying doctors will have to “recreate the tendon” in his left wrist “so it doesn’t dislocate,” and that the timeline for his return to golf is roughly three to four months, or roughly in time for the beginning of the 2025 PGA Tour season.

Below is Spieth’s complete Saturday note:

“I had a procedure on my left wrist last week, as I had mentioned was the plan. The operation went smoothly and I’m grateful for the exceptional medical team and support of Annie [Spieth’s wife] and my family. 

“Focused on rest and rehab, and I look forward to returning to golf healthy and prepared for 2025!”

Work and uncertainty, of course, are ahead. Wrists are integral to golf. In Spieth’s case, his left one has been bothersome for a while, and his results can at best be considered fair in that time. 

In an article published to GOLF.com earlier this month, Alan Bastable detailed Spieth’s injury journey this way:

Spieth’s last PGA Tour victory came 28 months ago at the RBC Heritage at Harbour Town. The two-plus years since have been marked by highs (T4 at the 2023 Masters; another near-win at the RBC; his usual short-game wizardry); lows (14 missed cuts and a disqualification); swing changes (his face is far more shut at the top than it was in his 2015 prime, an adjustment Brandel Chamblee said in January was “one of the more baffling things I think I’ve seen since I’ve been sitting in this chair for 20 years”); and, perhaps most impactfully, nagging issues with his left arm and wrist that he has been fighting to varying degrees since he chipped a bone in his left hand in 2018, an injury that he later admitted he’d never properly addressed.

For years, Spieth didn’t speak much of his condition; he was reluctant to use it as an excuse. But over time, the complications that came with it became impossible to ignore. In May 2023, Spieth withdrew from the Byron Nelson, in his hometown of Dallas, citing acute pain in his left wrist. He played in the PGA Championship at Oak Hill a week later but still wasn’t right.

In October of that year, in the wake of the Ryder Cup, Spieth reaggravated his wrist again while lifting a toaster at his home. “I wasn’t doing anything either time that I hurt it that should have caused what happened,” Spieth said the following month of the two flare-ups. After several tests, doctors diagnosed him with ulnar nerve damage. At long last, some medical clarity. “It makes me think, staying on top of this I can get to structurally doing what I need to be doing to be at my best,” Spieth said then.

Spieth spent the offseason trying to heal, undergoing physical therapy up to four times a week. At the first event of the 2024 season, the Sentry, Spieth was asked how his wrist was feeling. “It’s good,” he said. “It’s not so much the wrist, it’s kind of up in the arm and managing that. The wrist was kind of just what took the fall from some ulnar nerve stuff.” He added, “I would say from December on it’s been really solid, I’ve been on the right path.”

And yet the wrist continued to trouble him — and his game.

After a promising start to the season (3rd in Maui, T6 in Phoenix), Spieth began to struggle, missing cuts at the Players, Valspar and Masters. A week after the Masters, at the RBC, Spieth described his injury to the AP as “a come-and-go thing,” adding, “I could oddly enough twist in the wrong way getting off the ground, and I couldn’t play tomorrow. But I could play the next day.” He added, “the ulnar side of the wrist is hard to heal.”

In Spieth’s 11 starts since the Masters, he hasn’t registered a single top-20 finish. He has dropped to 39th in the world and 63rd in the 2024 FedEx Cup standings, as this week he prepares to play in the final regular-season event of the year, the Wyndham Championship, in Greensboro, N.C. Spieth is mathematically guaranteed a spot in the FedEx top 70 that will advance to the first round of playoffs in Memphis, but he will need a strong finish there to climb into the top 50 who get through to the second playoff event, the BMW Championship, and punch their tickets into next season’s Signature Events. For a player who won three majors before he turned 24, Spieth has much at stake over the next two weeks.

“It’s not hurting,” Spieth, now 31, said Tuesday in Greensboro when asked about his wrist, “but subconsciously it’s hard not to look at the numbers and think this isn’t a coincidence.”

At the Wyndham, Spieth missed the cut after rounds of 67 and 71, and a week later, he tied for 68th in the 70-player field at the FedEx St. Jude event, ending his season and starting him on the path toward surgery and rehab. 

“I like to think hopefully I have 10 to 15 years of prime and some of my best golf left,” Spieth said ahead of the Wyndham, “so I’ll be optimistic about the process.”