Spieth started the third round of his home-state open in a tie for 10th and rebounded nicely after starting with back-to-back bogeys with four birdies to share seventh at five under as he played the final hole.
But while the 18th at TPC San Antonio may be a relatively easy par-5, the third easiest hole Saturday, the tee shot is no cakewalk. It’s the most difficult fairway to hit this week with just 28 percent of players finding it off the tee this week.
Spieth did not fall within the 28 percent on Saturday. His tee shot caught the toe and veered off course, landing on the fairway before bouncing through the dry grass and narrow rough area, ultimately ending up in an unmaintained section with long grass and rocks.
Despite being 354 yards away from the tee, Spieth found himself in a challenging position, nestled under a tree and close to large rocks. “He could have chosen to chip out behind him and return to the fairway, but considering it’s Jordan Spieth we’re discussing, that was unlikely.
It was evident that his friend, NBC’s Smylie Kaufman, who was serving as the lead analyst this week, was feeling anxious.”
Oh my goodness, Dan,” Kaufman exclaimed. “I believe he has a plan. He is aiming to execute a powerful high slice shot.”
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He tried it. It didn’t work.
“His golf club rebounded off the branch directly in front of him, causing his ball to also bounce off another object.
NBC managed to capture a moment when the ball landed in an area that appeared to be a staging area next to the dense brush on the left side of the fairway.” The blimp ultimately found the ball.
It was in a position where it could be played from the penalty area near the staging area fence, but there was a large concrete drain separating the player from the hole.
Dan Hicks jokingly asked if they were heading towards another situation like the one at Royal Birkdale without the dunes, alluding to Spieth’s impressive 5 during the final round of the 2017 Open Championship that led to him winning the Claret Jug.
Kaufman explained that it seemed as though Spieth would have been granted relief from a temporary immovable obstruction if he was not in the penalty area, but because he was, relief was not available.
Spieth arrived at his ball and jumped on the drain to get a better vantage point of his options, reminding Hicks again of the image of him standing on top of the sand dune at Birkdale when he played his shot from the practice grounds.
Spieth quickly realized he couldn’t take a swing at the green. So where could he play it?
He basically had two options: Take a drop from the penalty area or play a shot toward the TPC San Antonio clubhouse, which is to the left of the 18th hole, not behind the green.
Wait, the clubhouse?!
“If I hit it over on the deck, where would my drop be?” Spieth asked a rules official who had arrived on the scene.
“The drop would end up by the scoreboard?” wondered caddie Michael Greller.
Spieth was seriously considering hitting his ball towards the clubhouse, located about 100 yards away from the fairway, and Greller did not attempt to dissuade him. NBC asked PGA Tour Senior Director of TV Rules, Orlando Pope, to provide an explanation for this decision.
The clubhouse is still in bounds so he’s trying to figure out which way to go there,” Pope said.
So, naturally, Spieth decided to hit at the clubhouse.
With plenty of risk of hitting the drain or enormous rocks around him, Spieth took a hack with a wedge, directly at the clubhouse. It carried the second-floor deck and landed on the roof.
“Of all the things I expected to see today Dan, I didn’t expect to see a ball on top—,” Kaufman said before Hicks finished his sentence.
“That’s on top of the roof!” Hicks said.
The entire broadcast team was flabbergasted. The ball rolled down to the gutter, reminiscent of Happy Gilmore’s winning putt around and through a fallen TV tower at the end of the film.
“I’m going to go out on a limb and say there’s never been a PGA Tour player who hit it in this area before,” said Curt Byrum.
After that, Spieth was given a complimentary relief some 70 yards behind on the right side, not too far from the fairway.
It was clarified by Pope that Spieth was eligible for relief from both a fixed obstruction (the clubhouse) and a temporary fixed obstruction (the scoreboard near the 18th green), as permitted by rule 16.1a.
Spieth had a distance of 124 yards to the hole from a rough area with some trees hanging over, requiring him to aim lower for his approach shot.
“If he gets this up and down for par, we’re putting a plaque here,” Kaufman said.
He punched out and ran his ball up the green, but it couldn’t crest the ridge in the middle of the putting surface and rolled back about 10 feet.
After all that, Spieth had 54 feet for what could have been the most quintessential Spieth-par we had ever seen. It wasn’t to be. He left his first roll eight feet short and missed the second effort for a gut-wrenching double bogey. It was the only double bogey on 18 all day.
He dropped from being five strokes under par and tied for seventh place to being three strokes under par and tied for 17th place.
As a result, he finished the third round 12 shots behind the leader, Akshay Bhatia. Kaufman reflected on his friend’s choice to attempt a difficult recovery shot on the second try.
Kaufman pondered whether he should have chosen to hit back into the fairway instead of dealing with the situation from there. Would that not have been typical of Spieth?