Jordan Spieth is teeing it up at this week’s Hero World Challenge for the seventh time in his career, and it’s the first time he’s played competitively since Team USA’s lopsided loss in the Ryder Cup. So, how has Spieth been spending his time over the last two months?
At his pre-tournament press conference in the Bahamas, Spieth revealed he’s been healing after re-injuring his wrist.
“After the Ryder Cup I went home and a week later I injured my wrist again, as I did in May, and I was out for another couple weeks,” Spieth said. “I finally got to the bottom of everything, so I’ve had really good physical therapists and had to add that into my routine in the last couple months, and will continue to. But essentially got to the bottom of it and was able to get in some really good work, although maybe not as much as I would have liked to.”
Spieth was forced to withdraw from the Byron Nelson in May when a wrist injury surfaced while he was playing with his son, Sammy. He got back into action at the PGA Championship a week later, and finished the season without any additional incidents.
But ironically, Spieth says the re-injury occurred during another seemingly innocuous off-course activity: making toast for Sammy.
“I was reaching for a toaster to make my son breakfast and I was just supporting it on the shelf. It made — in other words, everything was — it took the fall for other things that were off and it just made no sense because I’m like, what’s going to prevent this from happening at any other point in time,” he said. “But I was very shocked when I re-injured it.”
Spieth said part of the problem with rehabbing his wrist was pinpointing exactly what was wrong.
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“It ended up being a nerve thing, which is nice because I wasn’t doing anything either time that I hurt it that should have caused what happened,” Spieth said. “Both MRIs were very similar and shouldn’t have been in the pain and lack of mobility that I had initially after it happened. It didn’t make a whole lot of sense off the MRIs, and so then just did a bunch of tests and some work. Turns out it was my ulnar nerve, which is not anything to mess with, so I’ve been trying to take it very, very carefully.”
According to Spieth, treating the injury is mostly about being in tune with how he’s feeling throughout the day.
“As long as I’m on top of it treating, it’s kind of all through neck, chest, over and down, so it’s loosening things up,” he said. “It’s not really a rest or ice thing. It’s not an inflammation thing, which is how I treated it in May thinking it was an acute injury to the wrist. It’s more use it, but don’t overuse it. Listen to it.
“But I’ve been at full practice for weeks now and here or there when I feel like it gets close to being overdone, gym, practice, combination of a day, then I stay off of it,” Spieth continued. “But I have no reservations on my abilities to just do what I need to do going forward given the progress that’s been made over the last month and a half.”
Ultimately, Spieth says he feels ready to play.
“I feel very optimistic about where my game is at and will continue to head over the course of the next couple months as we head into a really busy call it early February through August,” he said.
Spieth will attempt to win his second career Hero World Challenge this week. He’ll play his first round alongside Will Zalatoris at 12:14 p.m. ET Thursday.