Some things are worth the wait. For Jordan Spieth, it has been 5 months of watching from the sidelines after he had to deal with a wrist injury. He went through pangs of surgery, along with the pressure of recovery but now he is back. Jordan Spieth is ready and raring to go at the 2025 AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am.

Spieth had initially injured his wrist in 2017 a significant point in his career. His form dipped despite the rehabilitation, and truth be told, Spieth was never fully recovered. The next incident regarding the wrist came in May 2023 while Spieth was playing with his son Sammy. Instead of surgery, he opted for rest and recovery. However, that did not work. In the fall of the same year, the 3-time Major winner re-aggravated the injury and found out that he had ulnar nerve damage. He still chose to continue playing.

In the RBC Heritage event in April 2024, his wrist tendon popped out. This was while he was hitting a greenside bunker shot. And then at the 2024 Open Championship, Spieth had his wake-up call. The injury which had not recovered well, bore its ugly head one more time.

While he was at the final hole in the final round of the major, his wrist tendon popped out again. He made a minor adjustment to finish the tournament, but not before making a decision.  “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 stated to CBS Reporter Jim Nantz, reliving the decision that forced him out for 5 months.

What was even more surprising was that he played two more tournaments after the incident. He underwent surgery three days after being eliminated from the FedEx Cup Playoffs in August. He had a cast up to his mid-bicep post-surgery. And this is where his mental fortitude came into play.

The road to recovery for Jordan Spieth

Jordan Spieth did not try to increase the pace of recovery. Instead, he waited until he was cleared by his doctor. He started by gripping a putter eight weeks after the procedure, then chipping and on the eleventh week he tried to regain his form by hitting Nerf Balls.

“A real ball, if I hit more than 40, 50 yards hurt pretty bad on impact,” he said. “Then at around week 12, which is what my surgeon thought it would be of the recovery time, there was a stretch there between like 11 and a half and 12 and a half where I could start to hit on a ball count and I would hit one, say a 6-iron thin off the heel and it hurt real bad.”  The process is a painstaking one but one that had to be followed precisely nonetheless.

And one day, the fruits of Spieth’s labor started showing “Then one day the thin heel one just didn’t hurt anymore. I hit it and I was like that should be the exact same as it was yesterday and it just didn’t hurt,” the 31-year-old explained.

He could have come back for the American Express Open, but he reconsidered it after some very good advice from competitors and friends. “I got a couple great pieces of advice … and one of them was that no one’s ever come back too late from a surgery,” Spieth clarified. “I kind of took that to heart. As much as I wanted to just start getting out there, I’m glad that I’ve waited till here.”

While there are still concerns, Jordan Spieth is making a return from injury at the very stage where he tasted victory in 2017. The AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am will be the ideal starting point for the University of Texas alum to restart his PGA Tour journey. Here’s to all the success you are going to get on the course, Spieth!