Jordan Spieth’s season almost ended days before the Open Championship because of his injured wrist

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[PHOTO: Ezra Shaw]

In his first interview since undergoing surgery on his left wrist on August 21, Jordan Spieth says he’s hoping to be able to take full swings again by mid-November and is confident he won’t miss any time when the 2025 PGA Tour season begins in January.

Spieth was a guest on Colt Knost and Drew Stoltz’s SiriusXM PGA Tour Radio program on Wednesday and discussed the procedure he underwent as well as the rehabilitation process in his future.

“Should be plenty fine by the new year,” Spieth said. “I just don’t know if I’d be able to play any of the events in December as tune-ups or anything. That seems like a stretch right now. But I’m also immobilised two weeks in, so everything feels like a stretch. So that’s what I’ve been told. I’ve also been told no one ever comes back too late.”

While first having issues with the wrist as far back as 2017, it was in May 2023 when the three-time major champion said he felt something pop after playing with his son in his pool. After that, Spieth battled an injury in which a tendon in the wrist could become “dislocated” without warning. As time went on, it was happening more frequently, the prospect of it healing on its own with rest replaced with the reality that surgery would be necessary.

Spieth held off having the procedure until the end of the PGA Tour regular season in August, in part hoping to qualify for the FedEx Cup Playoffs and work his way into the top 50 on the points list to be eligible for all of the tour’s signature events in 2025. While earning a spot in the field in first playoff event in Memphis, that’s where his season ended, as Spieth finished tied for 68th in the event and 66th on the FedEx Cup points list.

Mind you, Spieth wasn’t sure he would make it to the playoffs at all, telling this story to Knost and Stoltz that made it sound like his season nearly ended in early July.

“There was one day, it was the Friday of John Deere this year where I actually texted Michael like, ‘Hey man, it came out last night, it hasn’t gone back in overnight, and I can’t do this. I gotta go get this thing fixed now,’” he said. “So that Friday of the John Deere, I was calling it quits, actually. It was an afternoon tee-time and I actually ended up getting to the range about 15 minutes before my time cause I finally got it in and just said, ‘Let’s just see what happens here this week, and then I can reassess after if I play through The Open,’ or whatever.”

While Spieth played in 22 events in 2024, he posted only three top-10 finishes. Interestingly, he had the best season of his career off the tee (13th in strokes gained) but ranked 131st in approach and 94th in putting. Spieth, who won the most recent of his 13-career titles at the 2022 RBC Heritage, acknowledged a nervousness when hitting shots around the green.

“More kind of ground impact, anytime I had up-slope shots,” he said. “I really didn’t wanna make any excuses for myself the whole year because it wasn’t hurting to hit the shot, and then I’d get into competition and then I’d just bail.”

“Hopefully I come back from this and I just don’t have to think about it,” Spieth said. “I know that may not be the case the first few months I get back into it. But from what I hear, I talked to a lot of different players who’ve had similar operations and a lot of guys across different sports and they’re like, ‘Look, one day you’ll wake up and, if you’re patient enough, you do the right rehab, you listen to your docs and you take your time, there’ll be one day where you wake up and you’re like, Man, I just totally forgot that there was ever an issue.’ So I look forward to that day. I don’t know when it’ll be, but I imagine hopefully that’ll be within the next four or five months and then I get back to being me.”