Masters 2025: What golf gets wrong about Jordan Spieth

Jordan Spieth's name is missing from the pre-week Masters press conference schedule—a conspicuous absence for one of golf's most beloved figures who 10 years ago memorably won the first of his three career majors at Augusta National at age 21. Yet Spieth's exclusion carries a certain logic: Why celebrate the milestone that led to a prophecy that has been unfilled—at least in how the golf world envisioned it, one that fans and media struggle to reconcile? Ten years a captivating enigma, we still don’t know what to talk about when we talk about Jordan Spieth.

MORE: Once you've played Augusta, you'll never watch the Masters the same

For a decade now, we've witnessed Spieth's journey unfold like a meditation on potential and its fragile nature. Ten years since those four transcendent rounds at Augusta that didn't merely prompt questions about a young golfer's ability, but whispered possibilities about the heights his talent might reach. Nine years since the same grounds that spurred those possibilities revealed their capacity for exquisite cruelty, leaving scars beneath the surface. And for eight long years, Spieth and those who follow his path have existed in that delicate space between hope and resignation—waiting for a redemptive moment that remains just beyond reach, its promise eternal yet increasingly ephemeral, like chasing a mirage in the desert.

There's little value in retracing the familiar contours of his meteoric rise, dramatic fall and subsequent emergence from professional darkness—these chapters have been thoroughly documented. What remains largely unexplored, however, is the quiet complexity of Spieth's performance since his supposed resurrection at the 2021 Valero Texas Open. His return has yielded moments that flicker with promise. A runner-up finish at that summer's Open Championship that stirred brilliance. A victory at the 2022 RBC Heritage that suggested sustained renewal. Several near-misses at Augusta that rekindled hope. Three U.S. team appearances that spoke to his continued relevance among his peers. Yet beneath these highlights lies a more delicate reality—Spieth hasn't reclaimed the excellence that once defined him, whether measured against his own standard or the unforgiving metrics of stardom.

The evidence lies in his recent résumé. Spieth’s had nine consecutive major championships without a top-20 finish and entered this week's Valero Texas Open 68th in the FedEx Cup standings and 66th in the Official World Golf Ranking. These numbers tell a story not of failure, but of a gifted player navigating between competence and greatness. Skeptics need only observe the social-media fervor whenever he competes; his distinctive approach of finding trouble before executing either escape or a further descent into pain continues to captivate both fans and media alike. This adulation persists even as his finishes leave him far from championship contention. His career trajectory resembles a vehicle neither advancing nor retreating—suspended in a state of peculiar stasis.

In this era where golf's fundamental identity has been endlessly debated through the LIV controversy, the sport ultimately is governed by the unforgiving principle of meritocracy, and by this measure, Spieth's career reveals a widening gap between his enduring mystique and the hard currency of results that his profession demands.

But that represents merely a fraction of the Spieth enigma—perhaps its least significant component.

The deeper allure stems from his unmistakable style. While most professionals execute a game foreign to amateurs, Spieth's approach mirrors our struggles. The visible anguish over short putts and his uncanny ability to discover course locations that confound the most seasoned cartographers. That he frequently escapes these self-created predicaments doesn't just amuse; it offers hope to the rest of us poor souls battling our own golfing demons.

His personality amplifies this connection. Spieth radiates authenticity in an era of automation and possesses absolutely no poker face. With Spieth, the internal becomes external, his psychological dealings fully visible. Through his unguarded expressions—like when his shoulders slump after a wayward drive or his eyes reflect the quiet devastation of a missed opportunity or he speaks to his caddie Michael Greller with righteous indignation—we don't merely observe his trials as we inhabit them, as his personal experiences becoming shared. Few golfers possess such magnetic presence. In the post-Tiger landscape, only Rory McIlroy commands comparable gravitational force. This rare quality of attraction doesn't diminish even when the initial source of fascination fades from view.

Part of what sustains our captivation is Spieth's battle against the weight of his former self while simultaneously asserting what he might still become. When we speak of "becoming again," we reference consistent excellence rather than isolated brilliance. Unfair as it seems, such weekly mastery appears remote in today's power-dominated game—an arena where Spieth's gifts never truly aligned with prevailing advantages.

Yet we invoke "again" because, annually, golf's most revered tournament comes to a course that Spieth has transformed into his backyard—where creativity and strategic management still reign, where driving accuracy remains consequential, where patience intertwined with boldness becomes essential. Augusta National provides the rare theater where Spieth's zigzagging across fairways, his improbable recoveries, his vision for shots invisible to others finds validation—because at Augusta, the extraordinary becomes routine, where there is order to the chaos.

It's easy to roll your eyes at the romanticism of the Masters. But to deny it is to deny what is. The rapport between patrons and players and course is what makes this tournament so special, and Spieth and Augusta National have authored a romance that cannot be relinquished despite its evolution. As long as April in Georgia matters, Spieth will too. Their intertwined narrative defies simple chronology: his historic victory in 2015, the impressiveness of his runner-up debut, the near-miracle of 2018. Yet their tale equally encompasses heartbreak—the crushing collapse of 2016, the silent disappointment of his unfulfilled Sunday promise in 2017, the 2021 opportunity extinguished by Saturday's stumbles. If fate had been marginally kinder, Spieth's Augusta wardrobe might contain multiple green jackets; instead, one hangs solitary, alongside the invisible weight of unfulfilled expectations.

This demands we recalibrate our understanding of who Spieth is and his position within golf's landscape. He remains the game's chief entertainer and capable of contending at venues that complement his distinctive game. But the vision of a consistently dominant Jordan belongs now to history, his 2015 a singular achievement rather than predictive template.

What followed offers a more authentic portrait of the player he has become and will remain. Today's elite—Scheffler, Schauffele, Rahm, McIlroy—represent constants in the competitive landscape, their excellence dependable as sunrise, their presence atop leaderboards assured. Spieth, by contrast, has evolved into something more passing yet perhaps more valuable: a holiday—arriving occasionally, intensely anticipated, joyously experienced, gone before we can fully embrace it.

And yet, one of those holidays anchors the entire golf calendar. At just 31 years old, Spieth belongs to a fraternity of players whose relationship with Augusta deepens rather than diminishes with age. Here, where youthful vigor bows to seasoned wisdom, where artists receive not just permission but invitation to create. Jordan Spieth is not scheduled to speak before the 2025 Masters, and that’s all right, because artists talk through their work. And despite all the talk around him, Augusta gives him a blank canvas and a paintbrush in hand, free to simply exist.

Golf Digest senior writer Joel Beall’s debut book, Playing Dirty: Rediscovering Golf's Soul in Scotland in an Age of Sportswashing and Civil War, is on sale now at BackNinePress and all major bookstores.