Jordan Spieth isn’t lost in the abyss.
He is, according to Data Golf, the 42nd-best player in the world. He is 51st in the FedEx Cup standings—one spot ahead of Mark Hubbard and one behind Taylor Moore. Most of his underlying metrics are solid, including a big jump forward in how well he drives the ball.
Spieth isn’t lost. He’s just a good—but nowhere close to great—PGA Tour player.
The Spieth Plateau
It’s hard to believe that it was 11 years ago when a 19-year-old Jordan Spieth won the 2013 John Deere Classic in dramatic fashion by holing a bunker shot on the 72nd hole and then winning a playoff over Zach Johnson and David Hearn.
Spieth was an immediate sensation, winning five times in 2015. Two of those wins were majors—and Spieth had a realistic shot at capturing the grand slam. He fell one birdie short of a playoff in that year’s Open Championship at St Andrews and lost a duel against Jason Day in the ensuing PGA Championship.
Everyone remembers Spieth’s prolific putting performance from 2015, but he had a phenomenal season in all facets of his game. Spieth ranked fourth in strokes gained tee-to-green to match a similarly splendid short game.
He fell off slightly in 2016, winning twice and famously collapsing on the back nine of that year’s Masters. But the following year, 2017, Spieth statistically returned to the heights of 2015. He ranked second in strokes gained tee-to-green and was among the top iron players in the world. Spieth won three times, including the Open Championship for his third major victory.
We couldn’t have known it back then, but 2017 was likely the end of the Spieth era where he could be considered one of the most dominant players in the world. While flashes of Spiethian brilliance have reappeared from time to time, we haven’t consistently seen that elite level of play from Jordan over the past seven years.
Here are Spieth’s strokes gained total rankings on the Tour throughout his career. This is simply a measure of how well he gets the ball in the hole compared to his peers: