Jordan Spieth and His Hurt Wrist Are Heading to the Weekend at the PGA
ROCHESTER, N.Y. — Jordan Spieth came to Oak Hill with a game that was in question due to a left wrist that forced him to withdraw from last week’s AT&T Byron Nelson in Dallas.
He didn’t start hitting balls until Saturday and didn’t confirm until Sunday that he could likely handle the rigors of a PGA Championship.
After two days of practice, a limited look at the golf course that included just nine holes on Tuesday and Wednesday, the three-time major winner wrestled for 36 holes with a difficult Oak Hill course and survived to do it again on the weekend.
“Wrist is holding up nicely considering the busiest two days (were) the last two days,” Spieth said after a 2-over 72. “I turned under-par rounds into over par. I'll be the first to admit, I've gotten a lot of good breaks in my career, but, man, I got some hosed situations out there in the last two days.”
The biggest “hosed” situation that Spieth was referring to came on the drivable par-4 14th hole.
Playing 317 yards on Friday, the elevated green is almost impossible to find off the tee and most shots find the rough or greenside bunkers short of the green.
Spieth drive repelled off the grassy side of a bunker and found the sand in a precarious position.
With the ball up against the lip of the bunker and with his wrist not 100 percent, Spieth took a swing that would protect his wrist, yet hit the ball out of bounds over a fence.
After a drop further back in the bunker, Spieth got up and down for a bogey 5 but was one shot outside the cut line. But he then birdied the par 3-15th and parred the remaining three holes including holing an 8-foot par putt at 18 to secure his ninth consecutive made cut in the PGA Championship.
“I can call it a mess of a back nine, but I can also look to once I had to play out of that drop, I was already looking at no chance of finishing this off, especially with those last three holes,” Spieth said. “I went and hit, made my putt there, made a putt on the next, and then hit three fairways.”
Spieth remembered the last three tee shots from when he played in his first PGA Championship in 2013 and missed the cut.
He needed to find the fairway, but missed both the 16th and 17th, costing him one shot.
On Friday, he hit two of the last three.
"There's a lot I can take in positive to finishing that round," Spieth said. "I don't ever want to feel like it's a good thing to be around the cut line, though. I was out of it. Vegas would have had me favored to miss when I was about to play that shot on 14. I stole some shots at the end there."