Jordan Spieth played his best golf of the year at last month’s Ryder Cup, which bodes well for the already-underway 2018-19 season, but didn’t do anything to help the Texan’s falling world ranking.
Simultaneous to Brooks Koepka’s ascension to No. 1 in the world this week was former world No. 1 Spieth’s fall outside of the top-10 for the first time since November 2014. At the CJ Cup, which Koepka won, Jason Day quietly shot weekend rounds of 65-67 to vault up the leaderboard and post a T5 finish, which was enough to move the Aussie from 12th in the world to 10th, with Spieth falling to 11th in Monday’s rankings.
A lot has happened for Spieth since the end of 2014. Most notably, the University of Texas product has put together a borderline Hall of Fame career by the age of 25 years old. Spieth has won 12 times worldwide since entering the top-10, including 11 times on the PGA Tour and three major championships. He also spent 26 weeks atop the Official World Golf Rankings during that time.
Jordan Spieth will be outside the top-10 in the World Ranking next week for the first time since November 2014.
— Justin Ray (@JustinRayGC) October 21, 2018
His fall from the top of the world rankings has been precipitated by a winless “drought” — if you can even call it that — which dates back to the 2017 Open Championship at Royal Birkdale.
In 2018, Spieth’s best finish was a Sunday charge at the Masters, which yielded him a third-place finish, but a rocky remainder of the season that saw him finish in the top-10 one other time forced Spieth to miss the Tour Championship for the first time in his career and come under Tour scrutiny for failing to play the 25 events Tour members are required to play.
Spieth, who typically takes a good chunk of time off following the completion of the PGA Tour season, has committed to play in next week’s Shriners Hospitals for Children Open at TPC Summerlin in Las Vegas.
