Jordan Spieth at BMW Championship 2015: Sunday Leaderboard Score and Reaction
Jordan Spieth didn't make up his 10-stroke deficit to Jason Day. That said, the world No. 2 did just enough to keep himself in contention for the FedEx Cup title at next week's Tour Championship.
Spieth shot a one-under 70 to head into the clubhouse at 11 under overall for the tournament and in a tie for 11th overall.
The round was a case of two nines for the two-time major champion, whose Player of the Year status may be slipping away in favor of Day. Spieth stormed out of the gate on the front nine with a birdie on No. 1, following it with three more on a four-hole stretch from No. 5 to No. 8 to get to 14 under. He made the turn at No. 31, and with Day playing a largely conservative round, it looked like Spieth could at the very least make Sunday interesting with a strong back nine.
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It wasn't to be.
Spieth's round quickly fell apart on the back nine, as he went bogey-double on Nos. 10 and 11 before adding another bogey on No. 13. Again struggling with his driving accuracy, Spieth hit only 58.9 percent of his fairways on the round and got two-thirds of his greens in regulation. Both numbers were roughly around the tournament average, a far cry from the consistent performance level to which most fans became accustomed to.
"Everyone has their opinions, and the hardest thing for me to do is to not react to that and just to say, you know what, two weeks ago everyone said, 'You're the best there is, you're the best in the world, you're awesome, man,'" Spieth said earlier this week, per Steve DiMeglio of USA Today. "And then Jason (Day) wins and Jason is the best in the world...Rickie (Fowler) wins, and all of a sudden people are coming out of their igloos and they're saying, 'Man, that's my guy. He's the best in the world.'"
It's been a strange few weeks for Spieth, who won the year's first two majors, added a second-place finish at the PGA Championship and was fourth at The Open Championship. He missed the first two cuts on the FedEx Cup rotation, bowing out of the Deutsche Bank Championship and The Barclays in relative anonymity. Those struggles cost him his No. 1 world ranking and helped set up Day for a torrid end-of-2015 run.
Day is preparing to win his second straight event, fourth in his last five and fifth in his last seven. He has finished no worse than 12th since being cut at June's Memorial Tournament and has now made the "world's best" conversation a three-man argument.
Spieth's year, meanwhile, seems to have peaked months ago. He hasn't won an event since July's John Deere Classic and will probably need a win at next week's Tour Championship to earn Player of the Year honors.
"The last two tournaments that he played, he was just done,” Day said, per Jeff Arnold of the New York Times. “He was mentally and physically tired. I mean, it just doesn’t stop for him.”
Sean Martin of the PGA Tour's official website noted how close Day and Spieth have been head-to-head:
That said, Spieth's problems are very minor all things considered. Being considered merely the second-best player in a particular season is something nearly every other golfer on tour would take in a millisecond.
With another tournament still remaining in the tour season, Spieth still has time to turn it around. A win at the Tour Championship would put him back at the top of every list, ranging from the FedEx Cup to the world rankings to the barbershop conversations. Finishing at Conway Farms Golf Club with two rounds in the 70s wasn't likely how Spieth envisioned things going, but we'll see if he can put things back together a week from now.
Stats courtesy of PGATour.com unless noted otherwise.
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