Jordan Spieth’s return to competitive golf this year was supposed to be the fresh start he needed. After taking time off following wrist surgery, fans were eager to see if he could shake off the rust and finally break his nearly three-year winless streak. He was too. You see, his last win was the 2022 RBC Heritage.

“I had some really bad habits for a long time. Whether it was something that would have happened anyway or whether anything in my wrist was causing me to not be able to get into certain positions, I don’t have that issue now. Having to take three months off swinging forces you to come back and be wet concrete,” Spieth said before teeing off at Pebble Beach. He tied for 69th, not exactly the shiny comeback but just as things started looking promising, he dropped a bombshell.

His wrist still isn’t at 100%. And worse? He jammed it again at the Pebble Beach. “I was in a bunker on Spyglass No. 1, my 10th hole, and I had to flick one and it jammed it pretty good. It locked up on me for a little while,” Spieth said after finishing R1 at TPC Scottsdale. Yeah, it’s not exactly the kind of update fans wanted to hear, especially considering he’d already spent significant time away from the course since August 2024.

Clearly now, at the WM Phoenix Open, Spieth must be hoping to build some momentum but he is aware of the reality. On Thursday, he carded 3 under. It came at the courtesy of 4 birdies, and 1 bogey. However, his wrist remains the biggest concern. “Yeah, when it’s not moving well, for me, I’ve got a lot of lean and a lot of left hand involved, and if it’s not leaning, it’s going to go pretty far off line. Luckily this is a really good test these few weeks, and my expectations are low. I expect myself to make good swings, but as far as results, it’s hard to think that I should be expecting a lot after six months,” Spieth explained in a post-round presser.

That said, Spieth knows what he’s capable of. He is not here to simply show up, he aims to snag that elusive win. It’s high time a player like him returns to the winner’s circle and shows the world all the hype of Spieth Saturdays, that were once a thing. “I know where I was today, and I know that I can do better than I did today. If I can try to post a few scores at or better than today, then you never know, I start getting back in the mix and it becomes pretty fun and hopefully more consistent,” he added.

The golfer has also been toying with the idea of a new putter. In particular, he is looking for something that would align better, and be a little bit more smoother. He said he has a “few options” with him – so the putter, heel-toe weighted blade made by T.P. Mills, which we saw on Thursday may not be his last change of the week. He took 32 putts in the first round, holing 93 feet worth of putts, much of which came on a 56-footer on the sixth hole.

Even with low expectations, he is eager to be the best. “It makes me feel like I’m close to back to where I want to be,” he said. “I’m just trying to figure out what helps me stroke it the best, and I’ll use that one.”

It’s too soon to hit the panic button, but Spieth’s wrist scare is definitely a concern moving forward. Even though he insists he’s not putting too much pressure on himself, his competitive nature won’t let him settle for mediocrity. For now, Spieth is taking it one step at a time. But if his wrist doesn’t cooperate, his long-awaited comeback might take longer than anyone hoped. He sure does not want to go through what he did last time.

Jordan Spieth’s road to recovery hasn’t been easy 

You see, Spieth’s wrist hasn’t just been bothering him for six months—it’s been an issue for years. You could argue it’s played a big role in his rollercoaster of a career since 2017. It all started when he first injured his wrist in 2017, right when he was at the peak of his game. He had won The Open that year. Fast forward to May 2023, and the wrist flared up—this time, while he was just playing around with his son, Sammy. Spieth chose to rest to recover. But that plan didn’t work.

By the fall of 2023, the pain was back, and tests revealed that he had ulnar nerve damage, yet he kept playing through it. That brings us to April 2024 at the RBC Heritage, where his wrist tendon literally popped out while hitting a greenside bunker shot. Yeah, not great. But the real wake-up call came a few months later at the 2024 Open Championship. On the very last hole of the final round, his tendon popped out again. At that point, Spieth knew enough was enough.

“I got it[the tendon] back in before I hit my tee shot, and that’s when I thought maybe that’s the last straw. Maybe we should probably do something about this. I don’t really feel like playing like this anymore,” Spieth told Jim Nantz in a CBS interview.

And yet—he still played two more tournaments before finally accepting that surgery was the only way forward. Just three days after being knocked out of the FedEx Cup Playoffs in August, he went under the knife. Post-surgery, he had a cast reaching up to his mid-bicep.

Now, six months later, Spieth is back on Tour. But with his wrist acting up again, it is worth thinking if this comeback going to stick, or is just another chapter in his never-ending wrist saga