For the ninth time, Jordan Spieth will head to the PGA Championship with the chance of winning the career Grand Slam.
Outside of a T3 in 2019, Spieth hasn’t been near contention at the PGA since it became his last leg for the slam. Even in that high finish, he began the final round nine shots behind eventual champion Brooks Koepka.
As one of the most popular and entertaining players in golf, Spieth getting in the mix on the weekend and having a chance to complete the slam would provide a very enticing major championship.
It’s been a fairly quiet year overall for Spieth so what are the chances that the three-time major champion can find form at the right time and produce some magic for the fans at Aronimink Golf Club in Philadelphia this week?
It will be an uphill climb. Spieth hasn’t won in more than four years. In the past nine years, he only has two victories (2021 Valero Texas Open and 2022 RBC Heritage).
And it’s been three years since he was in the Data Golf top 10. For much of the past few years, he has ranked well outside the top 20.
Has the magic run out or can he find something this week?
Spieth’s current form is a mixed bag
It’s been a very odd year for Spieth.
“If you look at the stats, yeah, it’s a Whac-a-Mole situation because I have had weeks where I’m leading in putting, weeks where I’m leading in driving, weeks where I am leading in ballstriking, and then I just haven’t been able to kind of put them all together,” Spieth said Monday.
After starting the year 77th in the world rankings and falling as far down as 89th, he managed to move up to 50th after a T18 at the Cadillac Championship.
Spieth has missed only one cut and played steady golf in 2026 but he also hasn’t logged a single top 10 in 12 starts. A T11 at Bay Hill and a T12 at the Masters have been the highlights but everything hasn’t clicked yet to get him deep into contention on a Sunday.
Spieth’s game hasn’t cooperated throughout the bag in 2026. Early in the year, he was putting and chipping well enough to win. At Riviera, he gained more than six strokes putting but he lost 2.48 shots off the tee and got nothing going with his irons on the way to a T12. A T11 at Bay Hill was his closest to a complete performance as it’s his only start all year where he gained in all four primary Strokes Gained categories. But he was basically field average off the tee and around the greens and didn’t have the upside with the irons or putter to contend that week.
Starting at The Players, Spieth’s irons caught fire for about a month through the Masters. While the ball striking was plenty for Spieth to contend for wins, his putter went ice cold.
He gained nearly six strokes on approach in Augusta but lost nearly two shots on the greens. The very next week, he led the field in putting at Harbour Town but struggled everywhere else.
That kind of inconsistency has been a microcosm of Spieth’s game: Good but not quite good enough.
In the last two weeks, Spieth’s irons have completely fallen apart which is very concerning. But he’s hitting the driver incredibly well. He was No. 11 off the tee at Doral and he was No. 2 off the tee last week at Quail Hollow. It’s hard to feel great about his chances, though, after just having his worst iron performance of the year by a wide margin.
Overall, Spieth has shown plenty of potential throughout the bag this year but the balance has been lacking. You’d imagine everything will click at some point but that’s yet to happen so far in 2026. He went into the PGA in 2022 and 2023 in fantastic form but he didn’t play well either time.
Is Aronimink a good fit for Spieth?
There isn’t much course history to look at for most of the field at the PGA Championship. Aronimink hosted the AT&T National way in 2010 and 2011 and the BMW Championship in 2018. Spieth did play in the latter but he finished T55 in a 68-man field during the start of what was a pretty rough slump for him.
I do believe that Aronimink is one of the better course fits for Spieth among the recent and upcoming venues.
The PGA has turned into a bomber’s paradise in recent years, played at big ballparks that have generally required a lot of distance and firepower to compete. TPC Harding was the last PGA venue under 7,400 yards which is around what Aronimink will be at this week.
With a greater focus on precision and these tricky Donald Ross green complexes, I think Spieth might enjoy the challenge that Aronimink presents. He tends to produce his best stuff on courses that require him to hit certain types of shots and get creative on and around the greens.
Aronimink should check a lot of the boxes for where I think Spieth could be a factor.
Outside of The Olympic Club in 2028, future venues don’t necessarily favor Spieth, either, so this is hypothetically one of his best looks if his game follows suit.
Does Spieth have a chance to win this week?
The answer is yes. But the chances are low.
There are many players coming into the PGA Championship in great form including the top four players in the world. While the Masters felt wide open due to Rory McIlroy and Scottie Scheffler not having their best stuff on the lead-in, it still turned into McIlroy, Scheffler and world No. 4 Cameron Young down the stretch.
Now Scheffler and Young have continued to play even better golf since the Masters, leading to a few giants as the favorites at Aronimink.
It’s hard to see Spieth having the ceiling right now to contend with those guys—along with Matt Fitzpatrick, Jon Rahm and Bryson DeChambeau—if any of those guys have close to their A-game.
But in the scenario that some of the game’s best struggle, that is where Spieth does have the opportunity to jump in.
He’s shown throughout the year that all parts of his game have the potential to pop on any given week but they haven’t all done it in unison. Aronimink is a solid course for that to potentially happen since he’ll be able to focus on accuracy off the tee and will need plenty of magic with the irons and short game to navigate around the tiered green complexes.
I’d be surprised if Spieth has a chance on Sunday but if he does, it will surely be one of the most entertaining finishes to a major championship we could hope for.
Top Photo Caption: Jordan Spieth is going for the career Grand Slam again this week. (GETTY IMAGES/Jared C. Tilton)
The post Will Jordan Spieth Recapture His Magic At The PGA? appeared first on MyGolfSpy.
Article Link: https://mygolfspy.com/news-opinion/will-jordan-spieth-recapture-his-magic-at-the-pga/