HONOLULU – “Hey friend.”
That was Jordan Spieth’s salute to his young son Sammy.
After a quick kiss from Spieth’s wife, Annie, Spieth snatched his young son, not yet a year old, from his mother’s arms and carried him to the scoring trailer to finalize a carnage 5-over 75 in the second round.
It was 11 strokes worse than Spieth’s 65 in the first round, when he shared the lead with Chris Kirk and rookie Taylor Montgomery. Sammy Spieth, and to some extent his father, were somewhat oblivious to the proceedings.
“Just a bad day. I didn’t feel like it was much different, I just felt like I had a really bad deck of cards today,” Spieth said after handing his son back to his mother. “I made some bad swings off the tee. But other than that, I didn’t play that much different and I just ended up kicking into the rough here right behind the tree here. It was a strange, strange day.”
As good as Spieth’s machine was on Thursday, it was just as bad on Friday.
The statistical differences are astounding:
Strokes from the tee:
Thursday: 1,211 (15th place)
Friday: -1,296 (In 126th placeth)
Approaches to acquired strokes:
Thursday: 0.526 (56th)
Friday: -1.369 (116th)
Strokes taken around the green:
Thursday: 0.234 (59th)
Friday: -1.758 (139th)
Strokes obtained by placing:
Thursday: 3,494 (6th)
Friday: -1,404 (115th)
Shots obtained by scoring:
Thursday: 5,564 (1St)
Friday: -5.820 (143rd)
“This is bullshit. I mean, I’ve never led a tournament before and missed a sectional,” Spieth said. “I wouldn’t repeat anything. I made a bad swing, (but) I didn’t really make any bad decisions.”
Spieth could read chapters and verses about the strange places he found himself: behind a tree or on the edge of a bunker with a strange attitude. His drive hit the fairway and bounced into the water on No. 9. He had a freak lay in the bunker on No. 10.
Spieth will return home before returning to the PGA Tour at the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am. He’ll have plenty of time to shake off this horrible, horrible, bad, very bad day.
Players since 2011 who led or co-led after the first round and missed the cut:
Matt Every, 2020 Arnold Palmer Invitational (joint leadership)
Vaughn Taylor, 2018 FedEx St. Jude Championship (shared lead)
Zecheng Dou and Xinjun Zhang, 2018 Zurich Classic of New Orleans (split lead, team event)
Andrew Loupe, 2016 Travelers Championship (shared lead)
Keegan Bradley, 2016 Valspar Championship (shared lead)
Danny Lee, 2014 Valspar Championship (shared lead)
Camilo Villegas, 2013 Honda Classic (successful lead)
Jim Renner, 2011 Travelers Championship (Overall Lead)
Ben Martin, 2011 Genesis Invitational (joint leadership)