About halfway through a 45-minute session with Jordan Spieth, I ask what might be a very stupid question.
“If you could turn off your brain completely and just swing the golf club, what would happen?”
Spieth doesn’t hesitate, which suggests he’s given this a lot of thought beforehand. That’s always a safe bet with Spieth, who may have the most active mind in professional golf: he has thought a lot about this before.
“It would be terrible,” he says. “If you say ‘don’t think and just swing’ – I’ve never played like that.
Spieth explains that he has to have something to focus on as he swings the club or things go wrong.
“From a difficulty level 10 backhand, I always like to have somewhere like four or five to think about. And that normally determines the timing. That’s just on the backhand; from there it’s about being an athlete and hitting the shot. But if I’m not thinking about anything, I mess up.”
We have been filming “Warm Up” Episodes. for two years now, and it’s definitely been the coolest thing I’ve done on the job—a bucket-list set of interviews and crazy moments. But I’ve also remained greedy, keeping Spieth’s name at the top of my wish list since Day 1.
Finally, this winter, through a happy combination of persistence, acceptance and planning, we landed the big fish: Spieth agreed to spend some time with us at a driving range of his choice—and open a window into his beautiful golfing mind.
You can watch the full episode below or on YouTube here. But if you’re in reading mode, below you’ll find 10 lessons—about his game, golf in general, or life in general—that will stick with me.
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10 lessons from Jordan Spieth
1. Be an athlete and an artist.
Mess around, Spieth says, especially when you start your warm-up. He grabs a 60-degree wedge and starts off with a couple of quarter- and half-swing wedge shots, hitting his first balls only 20 yards or so, moving up a few feet at a time.
What’s important to finding his feel is varying the types of shots he hits, even at short range.
“They’re not all the same,” he says. “I’ll work a few different heights and then when I get to about 60 yards, I’ll start hitting three fairways at 60 yards.”
Meanwhile, he messes with the faceoff, creating spin, hitting a shot that he hopes will hit and stop and another that he hopes will finish more. He’s using different motion plans, he says, to try different shots.
“I’m just an athlete, being a wedge artist, and then as you get more into the full swing, you’ll probably have a little better control of the clubface than if you started doing it from scratch.”
2. Have purpose.
When Spieth first played on the PGA Tour, he was a high school phenom with no real warm-up routine. One of the things he learned from watching the pros? Do everything with intention.
“I didn’t go to the gym when I was 16 before (the round), no warm-up, and I would just hit whatever I wanted (on the range),” he says. That was the difference. “Watching guys actually be intentional about warming up as well versus just loosening up.”
3. Practice real shots from the course.
“There are some shots you might need on some holes there,” Spieth says. Because it’s golf, you don’t know JUST what shots you’ll face when you hit the course. But you know some of them: “The par-3s, I’m going to look for that green and make sure I hit that club. You always say you’re a ‘second-team All-American;’ (when you hit two balls) the second ball is amazing. Well, I’m just going to make sure my second ball is the first ball I hit on that par-3. So you’re trying to hit the shot, you see it, you feel it, you know it’s good.”
4. Work the ball into the hole (at your own risk)
Spieth grew up playing a draw, but now most shots fade. Still, when he’s playing his best, he likes to be able to swing it both ways so he can get holes in any spot — especially considering the PGA Tour likes to corner them.
“They just have these pins where it’s like, if you play a fade, sometimes you just can’t get it close. It’ll roll with the hill to a left pin and you just can’t get it close. And that’s probably OK, but it’s a pet peeve of mine. It worries me that it’s not always going to work toward the hole.”
But there’s a safeguard Spieth takes to make sure he doesn’t take too much risk as he takes each pin.
“Every time I hit a draw or a fade, I’m training myself so that ball can’t over-curve,” he says. “If it’s under the curves, I’m in the fat green. If it’s over the curves, I’m short.”
Under-curvature, then, is the goal.
5. Evaluate your 7-iron – it’s the best club.
I loved that Spieth was able to golf – talking in swing planes, spin rates, swing DNA, etc. – also making the simplest statement of all: he likes the way the 7-iron looks best.
“I’m holding the 7-iron. I love my 7-iron,” he says. “It’s like my favorite iron to look at. It’s the perfect rectangle. It just has that look to me.”
For those curious, Spieth generally hits the 7-iron anywhere from 175 to 190 yards, depending on the conditions — although at the Open Championship all the rules go out the window and he can hit a 7 out of 150. What about when he hits a 7-over-6? This depends not only on the spacing of the hole, but also on the position of the pin; if he needs to stop the ball quickly, he’d rather step on a 7-iron than try to hit a baby 6. Also, again, it looks the best.
READ: Here’s what Ludvig Åberg taught me in half an hour on the beam
6. Remember: Golf can work in reverse.
Explaining his current feeling, Spieth hits on something interesting:
“A lot of times the game works the other way around,” he says. “You’ve got to feel good about going left, you know? Like, every time somebody expects it, (tell them) to swing right. They say, ‘no way, it’s going to go further right,’ but they flatten it.”
I wonder if Spieth gives anti-slice advice on every pro-am hole he plays. He says he will wait until asked.
“I try to wait until someone asks because I don’t want them to give me advice if I don’t ask,” he says. Wait – Jordan Spieth is getting tips?! “Between the pro-am and the mail and everything, I promise I’ve had all kinds of advice. I don’t see or hear all of it, but I do.”
7. Making a change of pace? Stress-test it.
While Spieth has followed a complex hybrid of his past and present golf swings (the backswing depth of his 2017 self, the hand path of his younger self, the gym routine of his current self, etc.) he has tried to work on that new swing first in a controlled environment and gradually build it up for competition.
“I’ve gone from hitting most of the shots in a hitting range to videoing the first eight weeks to checkpoints in the hitting bay and then out … and then I perform,” he says. Performance means creating a combo for yourself, testing specific command shots, three-quarter shots, feeling and different shapes in different conditions.
“Had to focus on the swing for a while … and while it takes a little more focus than I’d like to play at my best, I’m able to make really good swings on the course, which — it took a while to get to that level.”
8. Find a good measuring stick.
For Spieth, that’s world No. 1 Scottie Scheffler, who happens to live next door to Spieth and serves as a frequent sparring partner.
“When we play games at home, I play with Scottie a lot at home and we play guys that are anywhere from one plus two to two handicaps, and the split is not what it would be if we were playing outside (on Tour) just because of what you’re mentioning, the pin positions,” he said.
How about playing with Scottie?
“Obviously, if you’re playing with Scottie, you have a pretty good gauge of where you are compared to everyone else, right? So that’s helpful.”
9. Forgive the past.
This comes to perhaps Spieth’s most profound answer, which I keep thinking about the most. What is it like, I ask, to have set such a high standard at such a young age that he is constantly compared to his own greatness? Here is his full response:
“It can be very challenging at times,” he says. “For example, I wouldn’t wish a few years out of the last five, ten years for a lot of people. You live in problem-solving mode, trying to figure out how to be, whatever. And knowing that a lot of it is mechanical is even more frustrating because it’s not like everything is fine and it’s just coming. It’s like no, you actually have to…
“But at the same time, knowing that once I get the club position the way it is, at least the way my DNA is, the way I want it, then good things are around the corner. Golf is funny, isn’t it? I’m 32 years old, so I can play at a very high level for another 10 years, and that’s a long time. That’s a full career for most other sports. I’ve done it, I can forgive the times they have been tough and just being focused forward with some scars that can help, you know, so as long as I stay in that mindset, I believe good things are coming.
10. Be a goldfish.
I didn’t expect Spieth to quote Ted Lassobut he says he relies on a mantra from the show: Be a goldfish.
The thing about goldfish is that they have 10 second memories. Their past does not dictate their future. And they have simple and calm minds.
Spieth is, of course, the anti-red herring. This is what makes him such an interesting golfer and thinker. A goldfish wouldn’t comb his golf swing through various points in his career, looking for the best stuff. A goldfish would not be thought of when standing on top of the ball. Maybe Spieth knows he — like most of us — could use a little more redfish.
My thought is leaving the interview? I like Jordan Spieth the way he is.
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