Jordan Spieth is running out of magic

Jordan Spieth almost perfectly summed up what it's like watching him try to recapture the form that saw him win three major titles before the tender age of 23.

"I believe I can shoot 5- or 6-under each day out here," Spieth told Nick Piastowski of Golf.com at the 2023 Sony Open. "Not to say that that means it'll happen, but there are other times I would be sitting there going, how do I hold this shit together, to be honest."

Unfortunately for the 30-year-old, the last few seasons have been a far cry from the brilliant form at the start of his career, with more scenes of struggling to "hold this shit together" than scores of 5- or 6-under. Perhaps a return to links golf for this week's Open Championship at Royal Troon will bring Spieth back to a better time. However, the underlying numbers don't paint a rosy picture ahead of Thursday's first round.

If a golfer laboring to find form is said to be 'lost in the wilderness,' consider Spieth deep in the forest with little more than a pocket knife and his trusty caddie, Michael Greller, helping him get back to civilization. With his missed cut last week at the Scottish Open, Spieth has finished at least 13 shots behind the winning score in 16 straight tournaments.

There are still flashes from the once boy wonder, recently a third-round 63 at the John Deere Classic. But it seems like a fool's errand to expect Spieth to keep things together for a 72-hole event.

Spieth won ten times from 2014 until the end of 2017, including claiming three major titles. He opened the 2018 season as the world's No. 2 ranked player but fell outside the top 40 two years later. Spieth's plummet eventually reached the 90s before he appeared to be back in decent form last season. Despite ending the year at No. 15, that number represented a bit of a mirage with LIV Golf members not accruing points in their events. Spieth has dropped to No. 32 this year, with the analytics website Data Golf listing him at No. 57 on their rankings.

Identifying Spieth's specific problem is about as easy as predicting how he'll play on a day-to-day basis. His struggles have stretched across virtually all aspects of the game, with putting perhaps the biggest culprit. The former Texas star seemed to make almost everything in his early years. However, outside of an unconscious outlier in 2018, he's regressed significantly since 2017. Spieth has recorded as many top-10 finishes in strokes gained: putting since 2015 as he has results outside the top 100 in the category.

After establishing himself as one of the better ball-strikers on the planet with four straight seasons in the top 25 for strokes gained: tee to green, Spieth fell off a cliff to rank 157th in that statistic in 2018-19. While he's improved since then, seeing him sit outside the top 35 in five of the last six years is still jarring. A nagging wrist injury certainly hasn't helped things, but if he's healthy enough to play, one would expect a better performance from such a talent.

This year's stats don't make the picture any clearer, as Spieth is driving the ball as well as he ever has. He ranks 15th this season in strokes gained: off the tee, his best ranking in that category in a decade.

Excellent driving should put Spieth in a position to attack flags, but his approach play has been abysmal, ranking 116th in the category on TOUR this season. That puts extra pressure on his short game to bail him out after errant iron shots to the green. The previous version of Spieth shone in that area. This year, he ranks outside the top 80 in both strokes gained: around the green and putting.

Spieth's other issue seems to be his inability to get more than one part of his game cooking at the same time. He ranked second in putting in 2018-19 but finished 157th in tee-to-green play. His best ball-striking season since his early prime came in 2021-22 when he finished 18th in tee-to-green play. However, he was undone during that campaign by the worst putting of his career.

If there's one reason to be encouraged about Spieth's chances this week in Scotland, it's the way he seems to light up when playing on links golf courses in the United Kingdom. Not only has he made every cut in his Open Championship career, but he's also finished inside the top 30 for eight straight years. Since 2010, Spieth has been the best Open Championship golfer in the world from a statistical perspective.

A Spieth charge in Scotland would ignite the crowd on site and the millions watching in North America. Even with the stark drop-off in his performances, he remains one of the most popular players in the world. This is largely due to the volatile nature of his game and his frequency in finding places on a golf course that only we amateurs can relate to.

Spieth's ability to extricate himself from those spots separated him from the rest of the world. However, the magic act seems to have dried up, and the glimpses of the former World No. 1 in peak form are fading into the past, taking his chances at golf's major championships with them.