Jordan Spieth honest about state of his game in chat with Amanda Balionis

Jordan Spieth produced a good comeback at the John Deere Classic this weekend, following a probing interview with CBS golf reporter Amanda Balionis. The 30-year-old golfer was tied for 57th after 36 holes going into Saturday, but he then managed to hit his lowest round of the year – an eight-under-par 63 – on Saturday This fantastic performance saw Spieth climb 35 places ahead of Sunday’s round.

Spieth failed to build on his Saturday exploits after shooting a one-under-par 70, but he’ll still be happy with his progress. Davis Thompson, who recently finished tied-ninth at the US Open, won the PGA Tour’s latest tournament after finishing 28-under-par.

“Setting a goal, sticking to it,” Spieth started, in a sit-down chat with CBS’ Balionis after Saturday. “I kind of had one lapse in concentration, it was my only bogey of the day. But other than that, if I didn’t have a great number, I played it to where I could make a putt.

“And then when I had a good number, I went after the pin, so it’s just interesting – we’ve been playing some many hard golf courses that I think it took me a little while to change the way I was playing here. And I saw a couple of putts go in, and my goal was to putt more aggressively today – I left a lot of putts on the front lip the last two days.”

Despite recording three top-tens earlier this year, the PGA Tour star hasn’t finished better than T29 since missing the cut at the Masters in April. To add to Spieth’s woes in 2024, he has dropped out of the top 30 in the Official World Golf Ranking.

Spieth’s friend, NBC commentator Smylie Kaufman, has given his take on the star’s recent slump. “It’s funny, right? Because if you go and look at the stats, you get confused because if you would have supplanted his driving ability this year, in any other year, he’s winning,” Kaufman said.

Kaufman added: “He’s always been able to lean on his wedge game, his short game and his iron game. His putting was good to start the year, but his putting lately has really tailed off and now he’s got an iron and wedge game that’s just mediocre from his standards.

“I keep wanting to believe that one week it’s all just going to come together. But when you have so many things that are just slightly off, it’s it seems like he pushes a little bit too much on some days to try to make something happen, instead of just letting the tournament come to him and letting his game come to him.”

Spieth has been focusing on enhancing his driving game, and Kaufman suggests that this might have negatively impacted his approach game. “Maybe there’s a correlation too, when you make swing changes, you start hitting it further, sometimes there’s a driver swing the guys have and there’s sometimes there’s an iron swing the guys have,” he said. “And I think he’s kind of caught a little bit in between.”