Among players, Jordan Spieth’s return to the dispute is a simple obstacle

Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida – If you want to see Jordan Spieth at Thursday’s Players Championship, you’ll encourage TPC Sawgrass.

Jordan Spieth saw the way Jackson Pollock saw the canvas, so he had a 70-shot first twice, without any neat and tidy. His front nine-hole golf is a practice in Seesaw, which includes two eagles, two birdies, two bogeys, two bogeys, and two bogeys, and twice as many as two pars. Even if those Eagles and Double gradually disappeared a more conventional guard Nine, his expression was only one person’s expression, away from losing thoughts, shaking, shaking, shaking with the promise of drama. Finally, he completed a good day in one-quarter of his biggest start since last year’s Open Championship.

In an untrained eye, Thursday’s performance seemed to be the life of a three-time Grand Slam champion. With the first repair of na damage in six months after wrist surgery, Spieth looks like Spieth. He shapes the camera in both directions, he shaky and hopefully, he takes off some real magical act.

It’s the style of golf and has always been a hallmark of Spieth’s game, and his glory depends on its unpredictability. Usually, the closer he seems to be to it, the closer he is yes Patch it together.

In theory, then, Thursday’s first round in the players seemed like the recent Spies to his old self in eternity. Yet when it ends, Spieth himself seems to feel how far away from that old self.

“I’m getting closer,” he expressed a painful expression to Golf Channel’s Todd Lewis. “But I’m still not there.”

Eight years have passed since Spieth’s last major championship victory, three years since his last PGA Tour victory and long since his last painless golf. After a long break after the surgery, he talked about his golf swing on AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am, like “wet concrete.” The goal is to bring back the habits and trends of the past, he said.

Thursday certainly looked like that in the Players Championship, but there was no such feeling. At least not the one responsible for swinging. However, this disconnect raises a bigger question: how would the old Spieth have gone for so long Know When did he come back?

“When I stand on it, I don’t want to avoid things. Instead [of what I’m doing now]I’m choosing a goal and I’m very confident that it will start with that goal and move to where I want it. “Most of these guys are where to play, and I want to get there.” ”

Spieth delivers the last part of the line with a little bitterness, and its subtext needs no explanation. Playing on the same plane with your competitors every week may seem like a simple obstacle, but it turns out that reality is already incredible for one of the most mysterious players of this generation.

“I did a really good job of fighting it,” he said. “I had to rebuild things from months of nothing, which wasn’t like I was going back to something that was already great. For a year and a half, I’ve been stuck in some really bad habits.”

fighting It’s a good word. In eight years of frustration and hard work, watching and taking root in Spieth is one thing, but living is another. If Spieth really believes that the 2015-2017 golf is inside him, then he will have to dig for several years to achieve this.

This pursuit is fearful. But in Sawgrass, there is hope.

“So, it probably just needs the ball I played before,” he said Thursday. “My wrist feels really good this week and I’m very excited about it, so it makes me feel like I can go out now and then push it a little while when I can’t do it in the first few weeks of the season, weeks, that’s my first few events.”

If you’re looking to meet Jordan Spieth, you’re leaving on Thursday at the Players Championship.

New Jordan Spieth? He still needs to be convinced.