Jordan Spieth’s on-course performance has been a bit of a roller-coaster ride in recent years.
The 32-year-old has 13 PGA Tour wins, the most recent of which was the 2022 RBC Heritage, but has been battling to re-harness the early-career form that propelled him to three major championships between 2015 and 2017. Since that heydey, he has also been dealing with a nagging wrist injury for which he finally underwent surgery in late 2024.
So far, the 2026 season has shown encouraging signs of promise for Spieth, who now has four top-12 finishes in his last six starts. And at last week’s Masters, Spieth closed with a final-round 68 — and made an especially bold claim about the current state of his game.
“I hit it better than the year I won and I hit it way better than any of the second places or fourths that I hit it,” he said. “Probably the best I ever hit it here and I typically putt these greens very well.”
That’s pretty high praise, especially considering Spieth’s performance at Augusta National over the years, which includes six top 5s and 10 top 25s in 13 appearances.
Spieth’s rosy assessment of his ball-striking is certainly an encouraging metric of progress, but one of the hallmarks of Spieth’s game is his penchant for on-course theatrics — at least when it comes to scoring. And at this week’s RBC Heritage — another course where Spieth has had impressive success over the years, with five top-12 finishes in 10 appearances, including the above-mentioned win and a runner-up in 2023 — Spieth is back to his familiar antics.
At first glance, Spieth’s opening rounds of 69-72 at Harbour Town are somewhat ho-hum — one under par, 13 shots behind leader Matt Fitzpatrick. But stats guru Justin Ray took a closer look and uncovered an astounding yet totally on-brand data point.
In the first 36 holes at Harbour Town, Spieth made nine birdies. Not bad! Unfortunately those birdies were largely nullified by four double-bogeys — one in the first round and three in the second.
According to Ray’s research, that made Spieth the only player over the last 20 years on the PGA Tour to have four or more double-bogeys and zero bogeys through 36 holes in any tournament.
Unfortunately, the bogey-free streak didn’t last much longer. On Saturday, Spieth’s first singular bogey of the tournament found him on the par-4 6th, with a three-putt. But that mis-step was, unsurprisingly, preceded by a birdie on the par-5 2nd.
For better or worse, Spieth remains one of the game’s most entertaining players.
