PALM HARBOR, Fla. – Jordan Spieth typically doesn’t watch golf highlights, but this particular one caught his attention.
It was of himself – last year’s final hole at Innisbrook, as the then-teenage Spieth sized up a 7-foot par putt with his future very much on the line.
Drain the putt, and a top-10 finish would give him Special Temporary status and as many sponsor exemptions as he could wrangle. Otherwise, he still had two exemptions left but no guarantees.
Spieth sank the putt.
“It was pretty cool to watch,” Spieth recalled Wednesday on the eve of the Valspar Championship, where he arrived this time no longer a promising up-and-comer but as one of the tournament favorites.
Set aside for a moment the young Texan’s victory at the John Deere Classic, his 2-2 Presidents Cup debut and runaway Rookie of the Year honors. Spieth understands his 1-under par journey through the Copperhead course’s finishing “Snake Pit” set the wheels in motion.
“The last three holes here were three of the biggest holes I played all last year,” Spieth said. “None of the rest of it probably would have happened if I wasn’t able to hole a flop shot on 17 and get up-and-down out of the front bunker on 18.”
After a runner-up finish in Puerto Rico, Spieth needed no worse than a tie for 13th to attain Special Temporary status. But it wouldn’t be easy, especially as he needed to find a birdie in the Pit – one that ranked No. 6 among the PGA TOUR’s toughest finishing stretches last year.
He parred No. 16, then found himself in the rough to the right of the 17th green. Spieth coolly lifted a flop shot so pure that it tracked right into the cup for the necessary birdie.
Then came No. 18, where Spieth held his nerves in check long enough to get the par putt to fall.
“I gave more fist pumps than I did (in winning) the Deere,” he said, wondering why his joy didn’t spill over more into his celebration.
“I was intense,” he added. “Gee, shouldn’t I have been smiling there? I’m walking off the green – Yes! Yes! Giving Mike (Greller, his caddie) a fist pump. I should have at that time just started smiling, but it was an intense moment and I was grinding. It was cool to pull it off.”
Now he returns as a headliner, already No. 12 in the latest world rankings and garnering as much attention as defending champion Kevin Streelman or former winners and Copperhead stalwarts Jim Furyk and Luke Donald.
In that sense, this week also marks a transformation in Spieth’s rapid rise. Other than the John Deere and Byron Nelson Championship, where he played as an amateur, Innisbrook is the first place where he returns with a sense of comfort.
“I love this place,” Spieth said. “It’s a special place for me, a place I’m very comfortable. I really feel this course fits my game well.”
Furyk, for his part, has been saying that for years. He got his first taste of the Copperhead during his junior days, when the AJGA played one of its top events on the rolling hills north of Tampa.
“I thought it was hard,” recalled Furyk, who won the 2010 Valspar, lost to Donald in a four-man playoff two years later and hasn’t finished outside the top 15 during that stretch.
“But I always liked the golf course because it didn’t remind me of Florida – wasn’t flat, wasn’t water everywhere. It was tree-lined, elevation change. … It reminded me kind of where I grew up in Pennsylvania. I didn’t have early success on it, but I always liked the golf course.”
Innisbrook’s tight fairways and double doglegs make it a ballstriker’s course, where the winning score had exceeded 10-under par just twice in the seven editions since joining the Florida Swing from a previous fall date.
“It’s a chess game out here,” Streelman said. “You’ve got to plan your tee shot to have the right angle into the green, and leave it below the hole to have your uphill putts.”
A pro-am day of start-and-stop showers, though, has left the Copperhead Course a little soft heading into the first round. Players also will have to deal with gusty winds Thursday and a temperature drop in which the high isn’t expected to reach 60 degrees.