Jordan Spieth gets in the hunt to complete the career Grand Slam with a first-round 69 at the PGA Championship
Winless since the 2017 British Open, Spieth overcame some problems with his driver on the 10th and 12th holes and finished with two birdies on his last three holes to put him in position to make a run at the only major he's never won.
FARMINGDALE, N.Y. – Jordan Spieth overcame a couple of hiccups with his driver Thursday and put himself in position to take a run at the career Grand Slam with a 1-under-par 69 in the opening round of the PGA Championship at Bethpage Black.
Spieth, seeking to become the sixth player to have won all four majors, made the turn in 2-under 33. However, at No. 10, he hooked his tee ball and needed four shots to get on the green, ending up with double bogey. He bogeyed the 12th hole after pushing his tee shot into the rough and advancing his second shot only halfway to the green.
However, he finished up with birdie putts of 15 feet at the 16th hole and 20 feet at 18 to move up into a tie for ninth.
“It was a nice finish,” he said in an interview with CBS. “I felt like I was playing really solid golf and then I just made a mess of No. 10. So to grab two coming in was certainly nice, momentum shift. Seeing a couple of putts go makes you sleep a little bit easier.”
Spieth, who is winless since the 2017 British Open, said he wasn’t worried about the two low scores that were carded Thursday – a course-record 63 by Brooks Koepka and a 64 by Danny Lee.
“I think you don’t focus on what they’ve done,” he said. “You focus on where the scoring is as a whole and try to shoot under par each round. If 3- or 4-under comes out of that, great, but under-par rounds are fantastic around Bethpage.”