Jordan Spieth sees his wrist surgery as a chance to reset. He plans to return at Pebble Beach

Jordan Spieth will be making his return from wrist surgery at the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am

Jordan Spieth has been playing golf for a month without pain and plans to return from wrist surgery at the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am, ending his longest stretch without competition and looking at his time off as a chance to reset.

“I had some really bad habits for a long time,” Spieth said in a telephone interview Friday. “Whether it was something that would have happened anyway or whether anything in my wrist was causing me to not be able to get into certain positions, I don’t have that issue now.

“Having to take three months off swinging forces you to come back and be wet concrete.”

He first injured his wrist in May 2023 when the extensor carpi ulnaris tendon (ECU) would pop out of the sheath. It reached a point where he decided to have surgery Aug. 21 in Colorado to rebuild the sheath.

Spieth said he went nearly 12 weeks before he could hit balls, and then another month before he played his first round.

“I’m not calling this swing changes,” he said. “These are just a reset into some of the stuff I did that was my DNA, that was super advantageous that I had gotten away from for one reason or another.”

Spieth spoke on his way to practice at Trinity Forest in Dallas — “First time I’ve hit to a range covered in snow,” he said — before going to the Cotton Bowl for the Texas-Ohio State college football semifinal game.

Still to come is shots from gnarly spots in the rough or an awkward lie in a bunker. But he said he was relieved when he no longer felt pain from having the club in certain positions or when the club made impact with the turf.

“One day I hit a shot that should have hurt and it didn’t,” he said.

He contemplated playing next week in the California desert. Instead, his return — a little more than five months since his last competition — will be at Pebble Beach. It coincides with AT&T’s 40th year as title sponsor, currently the longest-running sponsorship among tournaments. Spieth has had a corporate relationship with AT&T since 2014.

Now it’s a question of getting back among the elite in golf.