JERSEY CITY, N.J. – Golf, it giveth and it taketh away.
It’s one of golf’s truisms and three-time major champion Jordan Spieth found out the hard way at the Northern Trust.
Spieth, 28, enjoyed both the highs and lows that makes golf so seductive. On Friday, he made back-to-back eagles for the first time in 743 career PGA Tour rounds. But even Spieth knew that the Golf Gods had shined bright on him. After the round, he joked of his latest Houdini act, “I think I was probably plus-8 Strokes Gained: Luck.”
Spieth shot 8-under 62 on Friday to vault into contention, noting “it was one of those days where just like everything was going my way,” but he conceded that his round was a bit of smoke and mirrors and that he was heading to the range to try to iron out swing faults.
“I didn’t play normal golf today,” he said. “It was just kind of one of those days where you probably won’t get away with that throughout weekend.”
Spieth’s comments turned out to be prescient. He shot 72 on Saturday and then experienced the lowest of lows as he made back-to-back triple bogeys at Nos. 9 and 10.
Jordan Spieth made back-to-back eagles in round 2. He made back-to-back triples today.
Spieth is the only player in the last 20 seasons to make consecutive eagles and consecutive triples/worse in the same PGA Tour event.
— Justin Ray (@JustinRayGolf) August 23, 2021
At No. 9, he pulled his tee shot, the first of two shots into the water at the par 4. One hole later, he sprayed his tee shot right and had to take a penalty stroke en route to another 7 on the card. Spieth shot 8-over 79. He finished 1-over 285 for the tournament.
According to stats guru Justin Ray, Spieth became the first player in the last 20 seasons to make consecutive eagles and consecutive triples or worse in the same PGA Tour event.
Northern Trust tournament leader Jon Rahm wasn’t referring to Spieth when he said the following but he might as well have been: “At the end of the day, things seemed to balance out.”
Yes, they do. Just further proof that golf is a crazy game.