Jordan Spieth’s last PGA Tour start of 2018 ends in disappointment

One last chance to earn a spot in the Tournament of Champions. That’s what an optimistic Jordan Spieth was gunning for at this week’s Mayakoba Golf Classic. But in his final PGA Tour event before saying “I do” to fiancée Annie Verret later this month, Spieth frustratingly posted a MC rather than a W.

Spieth arrived in Mexico off a T-55 finish in Las Vegas the previous week, but put his old driver and 3-wood into his bag in hopes of providing a spark. Instead, he posted a middling even-par 71 on Thursday at El Camaleon Golf Course that left him eight strokes off the lead and with work to do just to play on the weekend.

On Friday, Spieth started moving in the right direction in his morning round, getting to three under through 14 holes, the cut line expected to shake out around that number. But a three-putt bogey on the par-4 sixth hole, his 15th, was a dagger. Unable to birdie his final three holes, he finished at two-under 69, only to see the cut move to four under and his 2018 tour season come to an ignominious end.

Spieth had hoped that his two “extra” appearances during the fall portion of the 2018-’19 season—it’s the first time he had played in either Vegas or Mexico—might give him some momentum going into 2019 after missing out on the Tour Championship in September for the first time in his career. Instead he finishes the calendar year without a victory for the first time since 2014, without a top-10 finish since his T-9 showing at the Open Championship and his lowest World Ranking since August 2014.