After hitting his tee shot on the par-five 14th hole Sunday on the Oaks Course at TPC San Antonio, former Longhorn golfer Jordan Spieth looked straight into the overcast sky and let out a big sigh. It just wasn’t his week at the Valero Texas Open.
A few seconds later, he began to talk about Augusta to his playing partner, Nick Taylor. Of course, Augusta National Golf Club, located in Augusta, Georgia, is the famous site of this week’s Masters Tournament.
The best athletes in the world often have a unique ability to stay present during competition. Still, even professional golfers have trouble not looking ahead to the drive down Magnolia Lane when the calendar turns to April.
Spieth and Taylor were still grinding for a solid finish to their week, but they both had a little bit of Georgia on their minds, and understandably so.
“Texas loves you, Jordan,” a fan from the grandstands on hole 16 yelled as the Texas native walked off the green.
If one can believe it, they used to love him more.
Just under 11 years ago, Spieth made himself known in the golf world, winning the 2015 Masters in record-breaking fashion. By August 2015, he had risen to No. 1 in the world after winning the U.S. Open and finishing in the top five in the last two major championships.
Spieth was a sporting hero for Texans in the same way fellow Longhorn and current world No. 1 Scottie Scheffler is today.
In that season, he reached heights that many golf legends never reach, and it wasn’t until the 2016 edition of The Masters that Spieth lost some magic in his wings.
Spieth carried a five-shot lead heading into the final nine holes that Sunday. It was a formality that he would become the fourth player in Masters history to win his second straight Green Jacket.
Until it wasn’t.
Spieth bogeyed his next two holes and then made his infamous quadruple bogey seven on the par-three 12th hole. He would ultimately lose by three shots to the eventual champion, Danny Willett. It was a collapse that’ll forever go down as one of the most heartbreaking moments in tournament history.
This week, Spieth will enter the sacred grounds of Augusta National a decade removed from his crumbling moment, a shadow of his former self.
From 2013 to 2017, the ex-Longhorn recorded 11 wins on the PGA Tour. Since then, he’s lifted a trophy on Sunday just twice.
Yet, during the buildup to The Masters, Spieth always finds himself as one of the hottest talking points. Much of that hype stems from his history at Augusta National.
Along with his win and tied-for-second finish in 2016, Spieth has three other top-five finishes at The Masters. He also sports the best scoring average in tournament history (70.98) of players who’ve completed at least 25 rounds at Augusta.
Spieth just has a knack for performing at The Masters.
“I’ll always have demons out here, but I’ll always have a tremendous amount of confidence out here too,” Spieth said during the 2018 Masters.
He may not be the player he once was, but he’s consistently an above-average to elite player statistically, including this season, ranking 33rd in Strokes Gained Total on tour.
“I’m doing everything well, the stats aren’t necessarily showing exactly how solid things are,” Spieth said at The Players Championship in March. “It’s been better than my scoring.”
It may be improbable. It might even be delusional. But somehow, someway, during the second weekend of April, Spieth instills hope in his fans that he’ll leave Augusta National a two-time Masters champion.
