The last time The Open Championship was played at Royal Birkdale, Jordan Spieth claimed the Claret Jug.
It was his third major championship win, bringing him just a PGA Championship away from completing the career grand slam. He was just 23 years old.
How everything has changed. In the nine years since Spieth’s Open win, he has won just twice, and the American has been winless since 2022. There were high hopes for his season at the start of the year, but now he’s never looked further from recapturing his former form.
Especially after what he did during a practice round prior to this year’s Open, which has fans massively concerned.
Golf fans are concerned about Jordan Spieth after practice round footage emerges
Before The Open, the Golf Channel posted a video of Jordan Spieth’s practice round at Royal Birkdale. Usually, these videos show off just how good these pros are when the pressure is off, but not in this case.
Spieth was spraying the ball all over the place, taking provisionals after nearly every shot because of his poor play. This has his fans greatly concerned ahead of The Open.
One fan posted to X, “l mean this is legit horrible why even post this”, and another fan agreed, adding, “Dawg why are we taking mulligans on every wayward shot and club-twirling terrible shots?”
Another behind-the-scenes video of Spieth’s practice round was posted to Titleist’s social media, and it didn’t look much better. He hit his approach shot into the bunker as he shouted after his ball. At the end of the video, Spieth said, “You got to strike it unbelievable around this place”.
One fan reacted to this video by posting, “Yet another video where he’s giving us zero hope. Just listen to that last quote from Spieth at the very end of the video. Come on, man. Already making up excuses. Already talking to his golf ball (in a practice round). He’s cooked.”
Jordan Spieth says how his game feels before The Open
He might not look close to contending during his practice rounds, but Spieth himself doesn’t feel like he’s too far away. Speaking before this year’s Open, he said he’s been frustrated because he thinks he’s playing better than his results.
Spieth said, “I feel better than my results have shown. Just a mix of reasons why, but a really good opportunity this week to believe that, trust that. The more difficult the venue, it requires me to really dial in mentally a little bit more, which I think is going to be a good thing.
“Then being able to handle whatever comes your way on a difficult major venue and kind of react a bit less. Should be a really good opportunity this week. I feel like I have a lot of great golf in front of me. I feel like I’m way more optimistic than I’ve been at a lot of different points in my career.
“I’m quite frustrated with the results, considering I know where my game is at. It’s better than it was four or five years ago when I got back to top 10 in the world. It’s without a doubt better than it was then; it’s just not quite showing up in results.
“At the same time, it’s a stay-the-course mentality, and sometimes stuff like that is delayed. Sometimes you get rewarded right away, like I did back then maybe in a bit of a lucky fashion, and I understand that sometimes it’s delayed, and that’s how it feels like it is right now.
“Knowing me, when the lid pops off the hole, I feel like I can go on a run about as hot as anybody can run. So I’m just waiting for that opportunity.”
Only when the tournament begins will we see if this practice round was a red flag or a red herring, but it’s not looking good so far.
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