ROCHESTER, N.Y. — Jordan Spieth played nine more practice holes at Oak Hill Country Club on Wednesday, and the three-time major champion says his injured left wrist feels good enough for him to play in the PGA Championship.
Spieth, the 10th-ranked player in the world, pulled out of last week’s AT&T Byron Nelson in McKinney, Texas, because of the injury. On Wednesday, he said he hurt his wrist at home in a “random” accident.
“I feel good,” Spieth said. “I wouldn’t play if I didn’t think I was in good enough shape to be able to play.”
Spieth, 29, will be making a seventh attempt at completing the career grand slam. He would become only the sixth player to win the Masters, PGA Championship, U.S. Open and The Open in the modern era, joining Jack Nicklaus, Tiger Woods, Ben Hogan, Gary Player and Gene Sarazen.
Spieth said he had a full practice session on Saturday and didn’t suffer a setback. He has undergone laser treatment, stem-cell treatment and cold therapy over the past several days. He’s wearing tape on his left wrist and black KT tape on his forearm.
“Name a type of treatment, I’ve done just about everything,” Spieth said. “I’m continuing to do it. It’s healed up. I don’t know how much, but enough to be able to play this week.”
Spieth said he’s most uncomfortable on shots that require the most wrist movement. He had a full practice range session on Tuesday, hitting balls for about 70 minutes. He hit every club in his bag. He played nine holes with Justin Thomas and Tom Kim on Wednesday and headed back to the practice range afterward.
“It’s more like anything that I have to flick over, like a high bunker shot or a high flop shot,” Spieth said. “I just don’t have the reps I’d like to have going into a major, but I’m happy I’m able to play because I certainly didn’t think so a week ago.”
Keeping the ball on the fairways of Oak Hill’s East Course will be important for every player in the field, but especially for Spieth. Avoiding the course’s high rough would keep him from having to blast a ball out of the thick grass.
“It’s nasty,” Spieth said. “There’s nothing that separates this and a U.S. Open. This is the U.S. Open. It’s gnarly. The fairways are firm [and] narrow and the rough is thick. As far as difficulty, it feels like a U.S. Open golf course, and par is a nice score is what it seems. Obviously, we played the last two days in a lot of wind, so that will make a difference.”
Spieth is playing with Ireland’s Shane Lowry and Norway’s Viktor Hovland in the first two rounds in a featured group. The trio is scheduled to tee off in the first round at 8:22 a.m. ET. Temperatures are expected to be in the low 40s.
Spieth last won a major championship at The Open at Royal Birkdale in England in July 2017. He won both the Masters and U.S. Open in 2015.
Spieth said he wouldn’t be playing if he didn’t think he could win this week.
“It’s not fun if you don’t think you have a chance to win,” he said. “If I felt like I was limited in a way that would affect my chances, then there would be no reason to feel like playing because then I could further damage it and that’s not worth it.”
