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Spieth Searching for His Edge

After an amazing spring and a long, exciting summer of hard work on the golf course Jordan Spieth has decided to take some time off during the FedEx Cup Playoffs. But unlike Sergio Garcia who decided not to play in either event Spieth is just taking the last two rounds of each event off.spieth db

For the first time in his career Spieth has missed two consecutive cuts and has taken some of the luster off the shiny new “Big Three” designation he, Jason Day and Rory McIlroy have been tagged with.

At The Barclays Spieth had changed his irons out for a newer model and we can toss that missed cut up to poor timing. But this week with his old sticks back in his bag he struggled with his real money-maker: his putter.

Three putts and a pervasive lack of feel with the short stick was his Achilles heel as his Strokes Gained Putting factor ballooned to -4.4. He used 33 putts for both rounds on his way to finishing 18 strokes off Charley Hoffman’s lead.

It was an untypical week for the man who his friends call “The Golden Child.”

Spieth was as confounded about his performance as his many fans. “I’m hitting the ball as well as I was in the PGA, as well as I was at The Open,” he said. “I have control of the golf ball just fine. For whatever reason I’m not scoring. Today was my putter. (Thursday) was my irons — my distance control from the fairways. Just not everything is exact and fine tuned like it has been this whole year.”

Spieth who has refined not only his physical game but his mental side also said he feels this spell of lack luster play is not rooted in his ball striking.

“Normally my mental game is my strength and it’s something I feel like I have an advantage over other players on. These past two weeks it was a weakness for me. And I’ve just got to go back and reassess how to remain positive. Just look at today, I caught a lot of bad breaks. I hit a lot of good shots that hit the numbers we wanted to and they either bounded over the green or they just ended up in tough spots. At the end I had to kind of press. And when I missed two fairways it wasn’t the time to press, so that led to two bogeys, and I couldn’t come back from there.”

spieth db 4The good news, well kind of good news, is that Spieth will have a long break to get his game and mind right. The FedEx Cup Playoffs take a week off between the Duetsche Bank and the BMW Championship which starts September 17th.

So Spieth can hang out with his pals, cheer on his beloved Longhorns and catch some NFL games and recharge his batteries.

There is also a chance that even with his missed cut he can regain the number one spot in the world rankings. But he’ll be happy just to find that edge which had all of us chiseling his bust on the newest version of the Mt. Rushmore of golf.

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