‘Felt like a big, big shift:’ Jordan Spieth details swing change post surgery

Jordan Spieth is finally healthy after dealing with a nagging wrist issue since 2018 — and he returns to the PGA Tour this week at the 2025 AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am with a retooled swing.

The three-time major champion had wrist surgery back in August. Once medically cleared, Spieth went to work tweaking a key part of his swing. Having months to get back in the lab did Spieth some good as he made a simple but necessary tweak to his swing that he hopes will allow him to rediscover his old form.

“I was able to work on some things in the swing kind of in a way that I hadn’t worked on them since I was 13 years old, where I had this time, this wet concrete to try to mold some things, get out of some bad habits,” Spieth said Wednesday during his pre-tournament press conference. “That’s still a work in progress, but I made a lot of progress in the couple months that I had to do it.”

The change?

Spieth needed to slightly alter a part of his backswing to help improve a wedge game that has slipped of late.

“It was kind of needed to fix — honestly, it’s my hand path, how I used to carry the club steeper, going back with my hands kind of traveling a little bit deeper,” Spieth said. “So doing that and then combining that with what’s necessary to turn it around to line it up at the ball. I had gotten high hands, hands that dragged on a lot longer. So a lot of my wedge play, some of my finesse shots and stuff suffered. You could still drive the ball well doing that because you have enough time to make up for it. It was mainly that, which, to me, felt like a big, big shift. In reality, if you slow it down on video, you probably see a shift, but it probably wouldn’t look that crazy to the naked eye. Little adjustments for us feel crazy big.”

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According to Data Golf, Spieth had his best Strokes Gained: Approach season of his career in 2017 when he gained 1.14 shots on approach. Since then, Spieth has failed to gain more than 0.58 shots on approach (2018) in any single season. Last year, Spieth finished the year with -0.07 SG: Approach. That was the second-worst mark of his professional career.

Spieth originally injured his wrist in 2018, which affected his grip. He made some tweaks over time, but eventually, he developed some bad habits that he is now trying to correct.

“My grip around [2018], I had hurt it, and I didn’t get it fixed,” Spieth said. “I already have a weak grip, and it got too weak, and I went into bad habits for a long time. It wasn’t until legitimately Tuesday of [Waste Management Phoenix Open in 2021] that I actually changed my grip to like five, eight degrees more on top with my left hand.

“That was 2021, and I played well, decently well for a few years. And then this happened May of [2023], and then it was just kind of — whether it was affecting it or not, I’ll never know, but it doesn’t really matter now.”

Now fully healthy, Spieth has no restrictions on his swing. He arrives at Pebble Beach with realistic expectations for his week and the early part of his return. Spieth will rely on a patient approach as he gets back into the swing of competition. The 31-year-old hopes that the next three weeks will serve as building blocks to get him back to the top of the sport.

A retooled swing he can now trust will serve him well in that voyage.

“Results are results. Results come, one drops or you’re in contention enough, it goes your way,” Spieth said. “But just being consistent, just stepping up and knowing I’m going to start the ball right there, that may lead to 69 that day, it may lead to 65, maybe 74, but I know that the next day I know what to improve on. Just a lot less guessing, more confidence in what I’m doing, and sticking to it is really what I’m looking forward to.”