Jordan Spieth was thinking about not thinking.
The thought, or perhaps lack thereof, came a week ago, as he was making his return from a left wrist surgery, and he was idealizing what was about to come.
“Ideally, I just don’t think about it,” Spieth said.
The plan lasted all of about nine holes.
Thursday, during first-round play at the WM Phoenix Open, Spieth Spiethed. He sparkled, looking a lot like the three-time major winner he is, behind a three-under 68 at TPC Scottsdale. There was also relief. He said on his 10th hole during last week’s first round of the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am, he “jammed” his wrist on a bunker shot and that it then “locked up” on him.
“My wrist kind of hurt in the first round,” he said.
From there, things spiraled some, and Spieth finished with rounds of two-under 70, even-par 72, seven-over 79 and five-under 67. “When it’s not moving well,” he said, “for me, I’ve got a lot of lean and a lot of left hand involved, and if it’s not leaning, it’s going to go pretty far off line.”
Should there be worry? Wrists are integral to the swing, and he said he went away from the work he’d done “just to kind of manipulate what I could” — but went back to his process Sunday and again Thursday at the WM. He said he was encouraged.
“It paid off there,” Spieth said of his effort on Sunday. “Then I put in a few good days of work here and thought I played better than I scored.”
Thursday wasn’t clean — he missed eight of 14 fairways — but he bogeyed just once, and he was solid in strokes gained: approach, a metric he struggled in last year. In 2024, Spieth ranked 137th on the PGA Tour in the category; Thursday he was among the top 20 in the field.
“To play a round in a few under out here when the conditions were — the pins were really tucked today so it was a little harder than a normal first round in the morning here, and to feel like I left a few out there is a really good feeling,” Spieth said. “It makes me feel like I’m close to back to where I want to be.”
2025 WM Phoenix Open Friday tee times: Round 2 groupings
He said he’s also giving himself some grace, albeit hard to do.
Spieth underwent the surgery last August. He said he talked with others who’d undergone similar procedures. He felt he didn’t rush things. He said he’s hopeful for this year, but realistic, too.
“I think short term is to — shortest term is to feel like I get through these three weeks and I feel as good or better than I did when I started as far as physically,” Spieth said last week. “That’s kind of a non — not very exciting goal, but one that would mean a lot. And then I would love to work myself into contention before the Masters at least once. And then maybe a lofty goal this year would be to make the Ryder Cup team. …
“A lot of this has been kind of a 10-year outlook. I think if I try to get — try to make this year coming back from this a ‘must play well,’ I’m just going to get frustrated because even though it was a while ago, I haven’t really been playing, you know, golf. And obviously competitively but even playing — I haven’t played many rounds since mid-August just because of the process.
“So I think looking at it from a long-term view as I step on the first tee, take it shot by shot, but let’s settle in, let’s get fully healthy and get some of these shots off these hanging — just playing’s very different from hitting a lot of balls off mats. So trying to adjust to that is more short term with kind of a long-term, back-of-my-mind view of maybe I got 10 years of hopefully similar schedules and set some goals for some wins and some contending in majors and stuff like that.”
Spieth said as much Thursday, too.
“My expectations are low,” he said. “I expect myself to make good swings, but as far as results, it’s hard to think that I should be expecting a lot after six months off essentially.
“Having said that, I know where I was today, and I know that I can do better than I did today. If I can try to post a few scores at or better than today, then you never know — I start getting back in the mix and it becomes pretty fun and hopefully more consistent.”
