Before beginning the tour, the childhood cancer survivor looked into the eyes of the PGA TOUR star and his wife and emphasized the power of their support for St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital®.
Mariangeles Grear told Jordan and Annie Spieth that after being diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia as a girl, doctors told her family it was a death sentence — that she had perhaps only a week to live.
All these years later, thanks to St. Jude care and research, here she was, guiding them through the campus. By making St. Jude a 2024 grant recipient of the Jordan Spieth Family Foundation, they are touching lives of families now and into the future.
“This place is not just full of amazing people, amazing doctors, amazing research but full of miracles that we see walking,” Mariangeles said. “What you are doing today are for those who when they get those words, ‘You’re not going to make it,’ they are going to have the hope and it’s because of St. Jude and people like you guys.”
Jordan Spieth had visited the St. Jude campus years before, for events with patients during the PGA TOUR’s annual stop in Memphis. And since first playing in the event so closely associated with St. Jude, in 2010 as a 16-year-old in his second-ever PGA TOUR start, Jordan had interacted with patients many times at the golf course.
But on this Monday ahead of the opening of the FedEx St. Jude Championship, Jordan would see St. Jude in a new way.
PGA TOUR star Jordan Spieth’s family foundation, investing in St. Jude research ‘personal for us’
The tour with Annie also would bring an even deeper understanding of the unique role St. Jude plays in treatments and research for catastrophic pediatric diseases.
And by the conclusion of the tour, after a chance encounter with a family who had just arrived at St. Jude, they would feel it in a much deeper way, too.
“It’s incredible,” Jordan Spieth said. “I think today put it all together, from the research side to people eating together and people sharing, and so many personal stories. It’s fascinating. In some cities where we play, it’s a museum or sporting event that is the highlight to visit. Here, this is the Louvre. There is nothing like it.”
