Never experienced anything like this’: Jordan Spieth sharing emotional moments

As is the case with Rory McIlroy’s next major win, Jordan Spieth’s next win of any kind feels close — yet so far away.

Spieth’s last PGA Tour victory came 28 months ago at the RBC Heritage at Harbour Town. The two-plus years since have been marked by highs (T4 at the 2023 Masters; another near-win at the RBC; his usual short-game wizardry); lows (14 missed cuts and a disqualification); swing changes (his face is far more shut at the top than it was in his 2015 prime, an adjustment Brandel Chamblee said in January was “one of the more baffling things I think I’ve seen since I’ve been sitting in this chair for 20 years”); and, perhaps most impactfully, nagging issues with his left arm and wrist that he has been fighting to varying degrees since he chipped a bone in his left hand in 2018, an injury that he later admitted he’d never properly addressed.

For years, Spieth didn’t speak much of his condition; he was reluctant to use it as an excuse. But over time the complications that came with it became impossible to ignore. In May 2023, Spieth withdrew from the Byron Nelson, in his hometown of Dallas, citing acute pain in his left wrist. He played in the PGA Championship at Oak Hill a week later but still wasn’t right.

In October of that year, in the wake of the Ryder Cup, Spieth reaggravated his wrist again while lifting a toaster at his home. “I wasn’t doing anything either time that I hurt it that should have caused what happened,” Spieth said the following month of the two flare-ups. After several tests, doctors diagnosed him with ulnar nerve damage. At long last, some medical clarity. “It makes me think, staying on top of this I can get to structurally doing what I need to be doing to be at my best,” Spieth said then.