Jordan Spieth was forced to withdraw from a PGA Tour event for the very first time on Thursday after the three-time major winner picked up an injury at the Travelers Championship
Jordan Spieth had to withdraw from a PGA Tour event for the first time(Image: Alex Goodlett/Getty Images)
Jordan Spieth’s injury at the Travelers Championship on Thursday comes just weeks before the final major of the campaign at The Open Championship.
Spieth, who welcomed the PGA Tour’s new CEO Brian Rolapp at TPC River Highlands this week, saw his tournament cut short for first time in his PGA Tour career. The Ryder Cup star was seen competing in discomfort throughout round one, before bringing his tournament to an early end.
He later confirmed he was struggling with a neck and back problem on the range that was only made worse when heading out onto the golf course.
“During warmup, my right scap tightened and despite trying to push through, pain spread to my neck and upper back,” he said on X. “By 13 tee, I realized I had to stop. I’ve never had to WD before, and hate that it happened at @TravelersChamp – a tournament I love. Thanks everyone for the support!”
His injury means he will not get the chance to compete for the $20 million purse on offer at the final Singature Event this season before the FedEx Cup playoffs. As well as this though, Spieth could well miss one of the biggest events of the year in The Open.
The severity of the issue remains unknown, and the 2017 Champion Golfer of The Year could well be in a race against time to be fully fit for the trip to Royal Portrush. Spieth’s issues were clear while competing in round one in Connecticut on Thursday.
Jordan Spieth called his round early(Image: Getty Images)
Having completed 12 holes, the former Masters champion failed to register a single birdie, making five bogeys on his way round before calling it quits. Prior to the event Spieth had spoken on how he felt his game was beginning to trend in the right direction, making Thursday’s injury even harder to take.
“Yeah, it’s incredibly frustrating because this was 10 out of 12 for me and I was looking at this being the strongest one, and I was very confident about that,” he said after withdrawing. “Everything I had done in practice and the pro-am showed me it’s going to be a really good event. It’s just a very weird circumstance.
“It’s disappointing. I’m having some — we’re having a 𝑏𝑎𝑏𝑦 here in a couple weeks, so I’ll have some time off now, obviously, to get healthy, but hopefully after a few days I go through the right process to just get right back to where I was. Yeah, it’s a bummer. It’s a bummer at this event, obviously.”
As Spieth alluded too, he has played a packed schedule in recent weeks, but he feels this has not played a part in his injury. “I’ve had little things here or there that everybody has, a hip thing here for a day or two, just random stuff. It was just totally random.
“It was not overdone. I didn’t feel stress coming into this. Like if I was anxious or whatever that would have caused anything to tighten up, it would have been last week, and I had none of that here. In fact, it felt like a relaxing week.
“I think it was just a random one-off that unfortunately got worse and bad enough on a Thursday that I didn’t feel like I could continue.”
