Jordan Spieth is a 28-year-old, three-time major champion and 12-time winner on the PGA Tour with $46 million in career earnings who has a long-time caddie and terrific, lovely family, so it’s difficult to find things that he needs for Christmas.
He ended a prolonged victory slump with a win in the 2021 Valero Texas Open and finished last season at 20th in the FedEx Cup standings and represented the United States in their victorious Ryder Cup competition.
Wishing Jordan Spieth a PGA Championship Victory
The PGA Championship will be played at Southern Hills Country Club in Tulsa, Oklahoma and all Spieth needs to complete the coveted career Grand Slam is a victory in the event.
A win at Southern Hills, a venue that has hosted both the PGA Championship and the U.S. Open, would make Spieth just the sixth player to achieve the coveted accomplishment, joining Jack Nicklaus, Tiger Woods, Ben Hogan, Gene Sarazen, and Gary Player.
Among active players, only Phil Mickelson and Rory McIlroy are within one major victory of achieving the career Grand Slam, with Mickelson needing a U.S. Open title and McIlroy looking for a win in the Masters Tournament.
Mickelson’s chances have probably come and gone, even with his win in the 2021 PGA Championship, but McIlroy is likely to win the Masters at some point.
Wishing Jordan Spieth to Trust His Talent
Like many modern players who grew up playing great golf and then end up having to compete on the PGA Tour, Spieth has had a tendency to doubt his natural ability in favor of making mechanical changes to his swing.
In large part, that shift was responsible for his almost four-year gap between Tour wins, an almost unfathomable occurrence following his 2017 Open Championship title that was his third victory of the season and his tenth in a three-year span.
Spieth’s nine top-ten finishes in his last 18 events of the 2020-2021 season indicate that he’s put the tough stretch of play behind him, further solidified by his performance in the Ryder Cup.
We’re wishing that he continues to get back to his former feel game, as opposed to gravitating toward a more mechanical approach the took him away from what made him one of the top players in the world.
Wishing a Rival for Jordan Spieth
Hogan had Snead, Nicklaus had Palmer, Phil had Tiger and Bryson has Koepka, so it would be great for Spieth, as nice as he is, to have a foil as he continues to rebound from his prolonged slump.
Part of the issue with getting this wish granted is that Spieth is naturally an affable and likable person, which also means he has several friends that are among the top players on Tour.
Perhaps someone like Collin Morikawa, who Spieth finished just behind in the Open Championship in July, could emerge as that player, especially if both continue to produce top-five performances in major championships.
With the large number of players making weekly rivalries an improbability, we can still wish for it because it’s Christmas, and at least we can ask.
