Getty Images
Jordan Spieth almost pauses when he says that. Because he does at least voice kind of weird.
“I can’t stand a flat, windless lie on the middle pin,” he says.
“I just don’t see it. Like, if you tell me that now, I don’t know; what’s the number? I don’t know what shot you hit.”
Strange isn’t it? Maybe a little funny? Who wouldn’t mind this situation described above? However, the statement makes sense, at least given the speaker.
The game of golf requires finesse. You swing a club. But you hit the shots. Which brings us to this week’s conversation between Spieth and Smiley Kaufman on the latter’s podcast, Show smileys. It started with creativity. But it ended with a warning.
For background, just know that Spieth paints in broad strokes. (See second paragraph of this story.) And that Spieth began his career with a bang, then faltered, only to recently find form again.
“For me, what I’ve noticed watching you now is that you really start to play creative,” Kaufman said on the podcast. “And to me, when you play creatively, you play your best golf. You play golf like an artist—you see the shots; you see the windows. That’s why you’re good out of the trees because it’s the window you have to see in. And when you play badly, it’s very hard to You play creative. And frankly, if you try to play creative, you play very creative—you try to divert it a lot, where it should be more simple and just shoot one shot. But it just doesn’t work that way for a creative mind like yourself.”
“Did you kind of fight that with regards to curvature of the golf ball and hitting it straight and what shot to play when you were struggling?”
“I think the easiest way to say it is I tried to do swings instead of jabs, and I think that’s what you’re saying,” said Speth. “You try to do a swing, there’s a lot of guys who try to take a swing and make a good career out of it. But, I mean, look at John Rahm and Scotty Scheffler, look at how different they work. And even Rory [McIlroy] Very different from both. They are hitting the shots. They play golf. They don’t swing. Rehearsals aside – John Rahm is the best example. I can’t remember seeing him work on something even in rehearsal. … He didn’t need to. It’s a beautiful place to be and play from and I’ve been there and you don’t know any different, so it’s a luxury.”
It was around this point in the podcast that Spieth noticed the near-quiet lie. It’s like hard straight strokes, Kaufman added.
“Yeah, I mean, technically speaking, a straight hit to go downhill is easier—gravity brings it back in line,” Speth said on the podcast. “It’s kind of the same deal. Like even on an uphill straight, I like to even think, Oh, yeah, he’ll probably kick a little bit to the left, then a little bit to the right and then I can binge; like, well, he’ll break twice, though That it would be dead straight. I don’t know, maybe you grew up in Texas with the wind and stuff, you never really get the chance to hit a dome, straight shot.
“The goal is to hit the shots, not the flips.”
Now back to that warning. Spieth worried.
Remember, he’s a man who doesn’t draw inside the lines.
And maybe take technology for him a brush. We’ll end things with a word of warning and advice. Is he right? Again, to each his own, but you can’t argue with his references.
“And that’s the only thing I will say is this increase in technology that I think has hurt me for a while — technology in golf does a lot of good,” Speth said on the podcast, “but I worry about that a little bit for the next generation because I haven’t shot a single golf swing Until I was 23. I think there are 7, 8, 9, 10 year old kids doing dissection. It’s okay for a teacher to do it. But I don’t think it’s a good option for kids to do it because everyone has their own natural movement. Look at the three guys you mentioned If they’d gone and tried to swing a certain way at a young age, who knows if they’d be where they are now.
“It has to be done the right way with the right coach and at the right time. It’s certainly good to know why you do what you do so well, but I think everyone has a certain balance of what is most beneficial to them as far as using technology.”
Editor’s note: To listen to the entire podcast, go to: Please click here.