Spieth says wrist injury flared up again last week

AUGUSTA, Ga. — Three-time major winner Jordan Spieth said he aggravated a left wrist injury at last week’s Valero Texas Open, the same injury that plagued him for much of the 2023 season.

Spieth, the 2015 Masters champion, said he also hurt the wrist before The Sentry, the season-opening Sentry tournament in Hawaii, and The Players in Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida, last month.

“When it happens, I can’t do anything that day,” Spieth said. “So long as it doesn’t happen during [a tournament]. Typically, as the week goes on, it gets better and better, using it more and more, and I’m recovering more and more than, say, my days off at home. I’m getting treatment daily here. That’s included with everything else that I didn’t used to do.”

The injury nearly knocked Spieth out of last season’s PGA Championship. Spieth revealed at the Hero World Challenge in the Bahamas in early December that he aggravated the wrist injury again in October by reaching for a toaster to cook his son breakfast.

Spieth said he initially treated the injury with ice and rest, believing it was inflammation. After the setback in October, doctors discovered the injury involved the ulnar nerve, which, according to the Cleveland Clinic, “helps you grip things with your hand and aids fine motor skills like writing. It also helps your hand and fingers feel things like heat, softness and pain.”

Spieth said the best remedy for the injury is rest, which he won’t be getting anytime soon.

“It’s a tendon issue that unfortunately I’ve not fixed, but when it flares up, it flares up for like 24 hours, and then it just slowly gets better,” Spieth said. “Last May, when I couldn’t play the Byron [Nelson] and then in October it was another week and a half or so. And since then, since I’ve gotten more on top of it by December, I at least know what it is and how to get it quickly better.”

Spieth hasn’t won on tour in nearly two years since defeating Patrick Cantlay in a playoff at the RBC Heritage in April 2022. His track record at Augusta National Golf Club has been very good with six top-five finishes and eight top 25s in 10 starts. He tied for fourth last year, 5 strokes behind winner Jon Rahm.

Spieth, the 18th-ranked golfer in the world, has three top-10s in eight starts on tour this season.

“I’ve come in here after a missed cut and had a chance to win, and I’ve come in here after losing in a playoff and winning,” Spieth said. “So in a way, I guess maybe that is a confidence more than a calming, where I don’t really go off of necessarily what’s just happened, but in general I have a really good gauge on where my game’s at.

“I feel like my game has been better than the results that I’ve had, which is that they typically line up over a course of an extended period of time. I’ve just had some really outlier weeks.”