Jordan Spieth, over Muirfield Village Golf Club’s first five holes, two-putted five times. He hit 10 putts, missing birdie looks from 19, 21, 14, 50 and 13 feet, so when he left the 6th hole with 11 putts in the most improbable of ways, his summation of the event felt as accurate as his golf ball’s roll.
“It’s golf right there.”
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Golf golfed, and Spieth Spiethed on the 6th green during Thursday’s first round of the Memorial Tournament. In the end, Spieth birdied the par-4, but how he played his third stroke is worth some examination. After his tee shot finished just to the right of the right fairway bunker, he hit his second shot to the right part of the green, which kept him away from trouble but left him with a bit of a geometry problem.
With the pin on the left side of the green and a dramatic right-to left slope facing him, the question Spieth had was how far right would he have to aim on a 63-foot putt. During Wednesday’s practice round, he said he tried the putt twice.
“And I hit it poorly,” Spieth said.
But he had an idea of what it would do. On putts like that, he said, he’ll try to find where “the fall line is on top and, you know, see a pitch mark or something where my ball needs to essentially roll around.” Thursday, Spieth rotated to the point where his back was facing the hole.
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He then hit.
After 3 seconds, Spieth started to walk slowly behind it. This gave him a good peek at the break, should he need to hit another putt, though it also looked like he was walking his ball to his home, which would have been an all-time swagger move. “You can’t tell from where you hit it when you’re playing that much break,” Spieth said, “so a lot of times I just walk to the high side and see. But I was also starting to walk because I thought maybe it was a foot short, which it’s hard to judge that from that far.”
For 15 seconds, Spieth waited.
At second 14, his ball inched toward the 4 o’clock spot on the hole. And then it disappeared.
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A one-putt.
As of late Thursday afternoon, the video of it on the PGA Tour’s X account had drawn three-quarters of a million views, and you can watch it below.
“So I hit the putt kind of around where I wanted to, and I thought it was maybe a foot or so short overall, and as it kept going down, I’m like, it might get there, it’s at the hole,” Spieth said. “And then it fell off the side of the lip, which was nice.
“I had decent chances on the first five holes and felt like I hit pretty good putts that just missed. And then, of course, it’s golf right there, right? So you stay patient, you get rewarded.”
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From there, Spieth played even-par golf for a one-under 71, putting him four back of the leaders.
“It’s great just to get into red on this golf course before anything else,” Spieth said. “Because then you don’t feel like you’ve — you don’t feel, like on 7, I didn’t feel like I needed to try to hit it further on the third shot, I didn’t have to try to get back to the pin. It shouldn’t matter, but when we’re used to shooting under par when we play, it’s really nice when you actually get that one, and it actually kinds of helps you stay patient from there.
“I hate when the golf course is beating me, so I always want to be ahead of it. And obviously out here that’s different than the last tournament I played, but it’s just kind of a mentality thing. So I felt like I just, I had a very good game plan and stuck to it today. But that being a bonus one makes you think, OK, if I was trying to shoot a couple under maybe that’s three-under now, because you weren’t necessarily expecting to get that one.”
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