Jordan Spieth, over the first five holes of Muirfield Village Golf Club, five-over par. He hit 10 putts, missing birdies from 19, 21, 14, 50 and 13 feet, so when he left the 6th hole with 11 shots in the most unlikely of ways, his summation of the event seemed as accurate as his golf ball spin.
“It’s golf over there.”
Golf golf, and Spieth Spiethed on the 6th green during Thursday’s first round Memorial Tour. In the end, Spieth birdied the par-4, but how he played his third shot is worth examining. After his tee shot ended up just to the right of the fairway’s right bunker, he hit his second shot to the right side of the fairway, which kept him out of trouble but left him with a geometry problem.
With the pin on the left side of the green and a dramatic right-to-left slope in front of him, the question Spieth had was how far to the right he would need to aim for a 63-foot putt. During Wednesday’s practice round, he said he tried the putt twice.
“And I hit it bad,” Spieth said.
But he had an idea of what he was going to do. On such shots, he said, he’ll try to find where “the drop line is at the top and, you know, see a spot of space or something where my ball should basically roll.” On Thursday, Spieth rolled to the point where his back was facing the hole.
Then he struck.
After 3 seconds, Spieth began to slowly walk behind her. That gave him a good look on the break if he needed to hit another free kick, though it also looked like he was driving the ball home, which would have been an all-time bad move. “You can’t tell where you hit it when you play that much break,” Spieth said, “so a lot of times I just walk to the high side and see. But I was also starting to walk because I thought maybe it was a short leg, which is hard to judge from that far.”
For 15 seconds, Spieth waited.
On the second 14th, his ball was putted towards the 4 o’clock mark on the hole. And then it disappeared.
An easy throw.
As of late Thursday afternoon, her video on the PGA Tour’s X account had attracted three-quarters of a million views, and you can watch it below.
“So I hit the ball around where I wanted to, and I thought it was maybe a foot or so short overall, and as it kept coming down, I think it might get there, it’s on the hole,” Spieth said. “And then it fell off the side of the rim, which was beautiful.
“I had good chances the first five holes and I felt like I hit some pretty good shots that I just missed. And then, of course, that’s golf right there, right? So you stay patient, you’ll be rewarded.”
From there, Spieth played even-par golf for a one-under 71, putting him four shots behind the leaders.
“It’s nice to get into the red on this golf course before anything else,” Spieth said. “Because then you don’t feel like you’re — you don’t feel, like on 7, I didn’t feel like I should have tried to hit it further on the third shot, I shouldn’t have tried to get back to the pin. It shouldn’t matter, but when we’re used to shooting under par when we play, it’s great when you actually actually stay from that help, and you actually get that help.
“I hate it when the golf course is beating me, so I always want to be ahead. And obviously it’s different here than the last tournament I played, but it’s just a mentality thing. So I felt like I had a really good game plan and I stuck to it today. But that being a bonus makes you think, OK, if I was trying to shoot a couple under three. waiting to get it.”
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