Jordan Spieth’s season ends with 2 questions lingering

When Jordan Spieth returned to competitive golf in February at the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am after offseason wrist surgery, he took the long view when dissecting his goals for 2025 and beyond.

Spieth’s immediate goal was to play several events in a row and feel good from a physical standpoint. His “long-term goal,” at least for 2025, was one that he knew would take a lot of high-level golf to accomplish.

“And then maybe a lofty goal this year would be to make the Ryder Cup team,” Spieth said in February. “I don’t have a lot of points off of last season, so given the level of competition on the American side on the points list, I’m going to have to do some really, really good things in some really big tournaments. That would be kind of an ultimate kind of year-end goal for this year would be to make that team.”

While the Ryder Cup was his immediate target, Spieth’s main plan for 2025 was for it to serve as a launching pad for the rest of his competitive career. He needed to remain healthy, clean up some bad swing habits that crept in while he managed the wrist injury, and build toward the next version of Jordan Spieth, which would take time.

“A lot of this has been kind of a 10-year outlook,” Spieth said in February. “I think if I try to make this year coming back from this a ‘must play well,’ I’m just going to get frustrated because even though it was a while ago, I haven’t really been playing golf. Obviously, competitively, but even playing — I haven’t played many rounds since mid-August just because of the process. So I think looking at it from a long-term view as I step on the first tee, take it shot by shot, but let’s settle in, let’s get fully healthy and get some of these shots off these hanging lies.”

Spieth put himself in contention at the Waste Management Open, finishing fourth. He tied for ninth at the Cognizant Classic and tied for fourth at the CJ Cup Byron Nelson while Scottie Scheffler ran away from the field. Spieth also finished T7 at the Memorial but was not a factor in any of the majors and was inconsistent at best from a ball-striking perspective.

All of that led Spieth to play in the Wyndham Championship, the PGA Tour’s regular-season finale, as he tried to bank FedEx Cup points and author a strong closing Ryder Cup argument. He finished T31 at the Wyndham and followed that up with a T38 this past week at the FedEx St. Jude Championship, the first leg of the FedEx Cup Playoffs. Spieth’s Sunday at TPC Southwind was a roller coaster as he tried to play his way inside the top 50 to extend his season and secure his spot in next year’s Signature Events. Spieth went out in one under on Sunday and made birdies at 13 and 16 to close the gap. But he needed a birdie on 18 and some help to advance to the BMW Championship. When his approach shot hit the bank on the left side of the green and bounced into the water, Spieth’s season was over.

Spieth’s lackluster showings in Greensboro and Memphis make a crowded Ryder Cup picture even murkier. Captain Keegan Bradley wants as much experience on his 12-man team as possible, and would have undoubtedly preferred it if Spieth stacked four good weeks together to cement his spot on the team. But now, picking Spieth over the likes of Cameron Young, Ben Griffin, Chris Gotterup and others seems unlikely, or at the very least, will be much harder to justify. Per Data Golf’s true strokes gained metric, Spieth ranks 15th on the PGA Tour this year in total strokes gained. That puts him as the 10th best American this season, ahead of Young, Gotterup, Harris English and Sam Burns. But Spieth doesn’t rank inside the top 20 in any of the individual stats (off the tee, approach, around the green and putting), isn’t peaking late like Young and doesn’t have the 2025 major record of English, who has two runner-up finishes and is currently inside the top six in Ryder Cup points.

After his T40 finish at the Open Championship, Spieth said he didn’t feel that he was currently one of the 12 best players, but he thought he could work his way into that group by playing well and making it to the Tour Championship. That didn’t happen, and it now feels like his Ryder Cup chances have evaporated.

While Spieth will await Bradley’s decision on how to weigh his experience and partnership with Justin Thomas against recent finishes, another question looms for the 32-year-old. Has the 2025 season, in which Spieth showed flashes but was overall inconsistent, been the launching pad he envisioned when he arrived at Pebble six months ago?

Per Data Golf, Spieth hasn’t lost strokes in an event since the Genesis Invitational, which was his third event back. Since then, Spieth has gained at least a shot on the field in nine of 15 events, with his showings at the Players Championship (+0.12 strokes gained) and PGA Championship (+ 0.40) being his low marks of the season post-Genesis.

All that has Spieth bullish about the trajectory of his game and his chances of returning to the elite level he once occupied.

“Next year’s going to be a really good year for me, I can feel it,” Spieth said at the Wyndham. “It’s all coming along. I’ll be healthy, and just structurally putting, the mechanics are all getting really, really close. One good offseason should get me nailed down to where I could be as good as I’ve been. That’s my goal.”

A month ago on Sunday at the Open Championship, Spieth went off early while Scottie Scheffler, Spieth’s friend who used to be chasing him, prepared for a celebratory 18-hole walk to his fourth major championship. Spieth was in neutral on the front nine before flipping a switch on the back nine, making five birdies to come home in 31. As Spieth walked off the 18th green after an eighth consecutive major season without a victory, he looked out into the Northern Ireland sky at nothing in particular. Perhaps looking forward to next year’s Open Championship at Royal Birkdale, the site of his last major win. Maybe looking back at the player he once was — the player he’s trying to recapture.

Either way, both felt far away that day. In a few months, we’ll find out if Jordan Spieth is closer than things appear.