Love and war, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, a locked-in Jordan Spieth doubling as Houdini, and the version of him blocking one-foot putts; when discussing the duality of man in the world of golf, one cannot give meaning to the conversation without at least a mention of the Texas rollercoaster.

Ever since traversing through a career valley from 2018-20, when he experienced the lowest of lows for a three-time major champion in his mid-20s, the steady ascension of Spieth back into the spotlight has been on full display. In 2022, Spieth entered the winner’s circle for the 13th time in his career when he got the better of Patrick Cantlay in a playoff at the RBC Heritage. Both players’ approach shots found the greenside bunker on the first extra hole, and when it was confirmed Cantlay’s ball was buried and Spieth’s was lying clean, it all but secured his lone title of the year.

That week in Hilton Head, South Carolina, was just a little snippet into Spieth’s year — and, from a broader perspective, his career. It featured everything that makes Jordan Spieth, well, Jordan Spieth: Hole-out bunker shots from impossible angles, chipping out sideways when a persistent Michael Greller urges, missing 1-foot putts (badly, I might add) and making everyone, himself included, believe the tournament is out of his grasp until somehow it is in the palm of his hand.

“You have a lot of events where you feel like you should have won and someone outplays you or makes the putt or something, and a couple times you have one where you feel like you played good but not good enough to win, and I honestly felt like this was that week,” Spieth said following his triumph at Harbour Town. “I needed a lot of things to go right. I needed to birdie the 18th then needed some help, got some help, dodged a bunch of bullets coming in and ended up in a one-on-one playoff where my lie in the bunker, although not great, was certainly better than Patrick’s. Yeah, it’s a bit of a surprise.”

The rest of Spieth’s regular season was relatively less surprising. He followed his victory with a runner-up performance to K.H. Lee at the Byron Nelson in his next start before capturing top-10 finishes at the Charles Schwab Challenge, Scottish Open and The Open to round out his year.

A strong final round at the Tour Championship propelled Spieth into the 2022 Presidents Cup at Quail Hollow as the most experienced member of the U.S. Team in a blink of an eye, and the golden boy-turned-man led by example. Garnering a 5-0-0 record in North Carolina, Spieth was perfect alongside Justin Thomas before capturing the first singles victory of his career between the Presidents Cup and Ryder Cup.

“I think I just used my example in here of the 2014 Ryder Cup and the 2015 season,” Spieth said on leveraging his Presidents Cup performance for the 2023 season. “I thought Scottie [Scheffler’s] last year into this year, I don’t want to put words into his mouth, but I thought he could probably draw on the experiences of last year’s Ryder Cup into his season this season …

“For me, yeah, I’m really excited about the week that was this week,” Spieth continued. “I thought that I played some of my best golf of the year this week, which was really cool to do it with and for — you know, as a team with these guys … there’s a lot I can draw on for next year.”

Despite this climb, there is still a ways to go to for him to return to his 2015 peak when he won the Masters, U.S. Open and Tour Championship. That begs the question: What should we expect Spieth’s 2023 to look like? Is one win, a strong team performance and a potential run at a major championship the new baseline from which we should define success for him? It is worth pondering how much staying power this new baseline may truly have. 

The romantic — and maybe even the agent of chaos — in me believes there’s more to be had. The talent pool on the PGA Tour has never been deeper. The accolades mentioned above do make for a fantastic season in this era. Yet, for a magician like Spieth who can wave his wand awkwardly on rehearsal and effortlessly just moments later, you can’t help but let your mind drift towards the unimaginable.

This season, the PGA Tour will unveil a new schedule which Spieth will very much be a part of after finishing third in the 2022 Player Impact Program behind only Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy. Playing in 13 elevated events that will feature the best talent on the circuit, four major championships and a handful of other tournaments, winning has suddenly become even more difficult.

Never an afterthought at Augusta, and proving to be one of the great links golf players of his time, Spieth’s name on the first page of a major championship leaderboard is expected at least once a year regardless of form. When the PGA Tour travels to the state of Texas, the same presence will be assumed from the former Longhorn.

Perhaps this leads to his first multiple-win season since 2017. Perhaps he is without new hardware as he was the three years following. Maybe his name jumps next to four-time major champions like McIlroy, Brooks Koepka, Ernie Els and Raymond Floyd. Maybe he does one better and joins the ranks of Seve Ballesteros and Byron Nelson.

On paper, accomplishing in 2023 what he did in 2022 would merit calling the season a success. However, golf isn’t played on paper, and the projection of Spieth’s next 365 days doesn’t belong on it either.

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There was a brief moment in the final round of the 2022 Hero World Challenge when Viktor Hovland was joined atop the leaderboard. When playing competitor Scottie Scheffler holed out for eagle on the par-5 6th, the event’s defending champion was forced to answer, and answer he did.

Converting an opportunity of his own from roughly 15 feet, Hovland carded his second birdie in his opening six holes to remain out in front by a single stroke. Tacking on another birdie on the following hole and rounding out his inner nine with a pair of pars, Hovland saw his lead balloon to as many as five.

While his closest pursuer would change throughout the second nine among Scheffler, Xander Schauffele and Cameron Young, who were making runs ahead of the final pair, Hovland stood pat. A few nervy moments — namely on the 72nd hole — ultimately resulted in a back-nine 36, but was enough for the 25-year-old to finish the week at 16 under and successfully defend his Hero World Challenge crown from a year ago.

“It’s frickin nerve-wracking,” Hovland said on trying to close out a tournament. “I was leading by five after the turn and you’re just never that comfortable. I didn’t play all that great on the back nine but it was good enough.”

Joining only Tiger Woods in winning the Hero World Challenge in back-to-back years, it may now be time to remove Hovland from the best young player of this generation conversation and insert him into the best player in the world debate. Having previously reached as high as world No. 3, he is now seven times a winner worldwide — more than Scheffler, Will Zalatoris, Collin Morikawa and Sam Burns. While his triumphs lack the lore of some of his counterparts, the quantity is nevertheless impressive.

Twice a winner in The Bahamas, twice at Mayakoba, two more in Europe and once in Puerto Rico, it is a kid from Norway who has staked his claim as the king of the tropics. As strong a ball striker you’ll find, consistent improvements around the green combined with the implementation of aim point on the greens make the now world No. 9’s future prospects all the more intriguing.

“I guess we’ll find out,” Hovland said on what this win will do for his 2023 season. “The short career that I’ve had, I’ve tend to play very well later in the year and earlier in the year. The next goal is to try keep playing like this throughout the year. It’s fun to end the year with a win and kind of sit on the couch for a couple weeks with a smile on your face.”

While his demeanor on the golf course and ever-present wide smile may not match the ferociousness of his music selection, perhaps soon it will. An emphatic fist pump following his winning putt gave us a glimmer of this and showed the meaningfulness of finishing atop a 20-man field in The Bahamas. While not a PGA Tour event nor DP World Tour event, it was a tournament filled with the best players in the world and served as a strong reminder that Hovland is firmly among them. Grade: A+

Here are the grades for the rest of the leaderboard at the 2022 Hero World Challenge

2. Scottie Scheffler (-14): What a good ending to what was truly one of the great years in modern PGA Tour history. Though this doesn’t count toward his PGA Tour total of 13 top 10s in 2022, it’s still emblematic of the 12 months Scheffler has put together. Though he’s not technically the best player in the world at this moment, you could (and I probably would) argue that if you look at the last year of golf, nobody on the planet has been better. Grade: A

6. Collin Morikawa (-9): Morikawa didn’t really need a nice week, but a year after he kicked away a chance to take the No. 1 ranking in the world, it was good to see him thrive even if he came up a bit short of his first title of 2022. A confidence-boosting event after an up-and-down year will be useful to Morikawa, who goes into 2023 a bit on the undervalued side. Not much has changed with him, though. He hasn’t fallen off a cliff statistically, nor is he in a bad spot. If anything, public opinion went too far after he won two of his first eight majors and now it has swung too far the other way. This is a good opportunity to buy low on somebody I believe is one of the eight best players in the world. Grade: A-

T8. Jon Rahm (-5): It wasn’t the tournament I expected from Rahm given that he came into the week having been beaten by four players in his last four starts worldwide. Was it a bad week? I don’t know about that. Rahm still tied or beat 12 of the 20 best players in the world this week and goes into 2023 with probably the highest ceiling of anyone not named “McIlroy.” Grade: B-

15. Jordan Spieth (+1): Should we draw some broader conclusion as it relates to Spieth’s 15th place finish this week in the Bahamas? History says no, but also Spieth’s history says no. He finished last at this tournament this time a year ago and went on to have a solid 2022 that included a victory and six top 10s. A bad week for him at the Hero, but it doesn’t change my (always?) bullish outlook for him over the next few months. Grade: D

Tiger Woods (N/A): Big Cat unfortunately did not play in a week in which he was slated to, but it was still awesome to see him cruising around the course, jumping in the booth with Dan Hicks and Paul Azinger to offer commentary and staring down players trying as they tried to somehow hit good shots in front of the best to ever do it. If that’s all we get from Tiger going forward, I’m still going to be a big fan of that dynamic (and perhaps even more so than if he was playing). Grade: A

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While the LIV Golf Championship wound down with $34 million on the line between 16 golfers in Miami on Sunday, Seamus Power had something even more valuable at stake one time zone east of where Dustin Johnson and Patrick Reed were busy winning the $16 million first prize at LIV Miami.

Power shot a roller coaster of a 70 in the final round of the Butterfield Bermuda Championship to go with three consecutive 65s to start the week and beat Thomas Detry by a single shot. The win gets Power into next year’s Masters (he’s only played in one in his career), moves him up from his impressive No. 48 spot in the Official World Golf Rankings, nets him 500 FedEx Cup points and, perhaps most intriguing of all, officially puts him on the 2023 Ryder Cup watch list.

The Irishman went out in 33 on Sunday but came home with four bogeys (including three in his last four holes!) and a 37 that could have upended his chances. However, his main competitor in the final round in Bermuda, Ben Griffin, had an even wackier back nine as he shot a 4-over 39 on the back with two birdies, four bogeys and a double.

“Delighted to get it done,” the affable European said after his round. “… absolutely delighted.”

The win is Power’s second on the PGA Tour — he also took the Barbasol Championship in 2021. But don’t let the quality of victory obfuscate what has been a terrific rise for somebody who doesn’t get as much run as fellow countryman Shane Lowry but could possibly a teammate of Lowry’s come Rom next September.

“Completely different feeling but just as special,” said the 35-year-old after his win. “It’s so hard. I play a lot of tournaments and this is only my second. It’s amazing it’s special. It’s going to take a while to sink in, but absolutely over the moon.”

In 2019 Power was a (well) below average PGA Tour player who was averaging -1.0 strokes per round, but in each of the last three seasons he’s improved to the point that he’s now hanging out in the statistical neighborhood with golfers like Jason Day, Paul Casey, Jordan Spieth and Adam Scott.

Perhaps even more impressively, Power came into this week’s Bermuda Championship as one of the handful of favorites to win … and then he won. That’s one of the hardest things in golf to do, and now the question is whether he can move from being a good lower-tier PGA Tour player to competitive with the big boys in the most important events.

In 2022, Power qualified for all four major championships and had two top 12s and three top 30s in his four starts. This is encouraging and a sign of his tremendous growth as a golfer over the last several years.

Power could go a number of different directions from here. Perhaps he’ll remain as a good but not great PGA Tour golfer. Perhaps he’ll make yet another leap in 2023, contend in more majors and notch his first Ryder Cup experience in Rome. Perhaps somewhere in the middle of those two realities is where he’ll eventually land. Regardless, his win in Bermuda on Sunday was a reminder of just how far he’s jumped in such a short timespan and what that could mean for his suddenly surging career.

We’ve got reaction and analysis to the Bermuda Butterfield Championship and LIV Miami. Follow and listen to The First Cut podcast on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.  

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Adam Scott reflects on a 22-year career that has so far yielded 31 wins, a world no.1 ranking, and a coveted major championship victory at the 2013 Masters. Despite his advancing age, the 42-year-old Australian still feels he has time – and the desire – to add to his already impressive CV

After more than two decades on tour, I’m all about trying to get the right balance in my life between work and family. I moved back to Europe during Covid and settled my family in Crans sur Sierre in Switzerland. I have to do things now to make things as easy as possible for me get around to the tournaments that I want to play, while also not being too far from my wife and the kids. I’m still playing a global schedule, mixing tournaments on the PGA Tour and the DP World Tour, but I’m a bit more picky about where and when I play.

As it did for many people, the pandemic has changed a lot of things for me. Previously I had a very global team, and we had become used to being able to operate and to live wherever we wanted. My trainer was in Hawaii, my coach was in London, and I was living in Switzerland, and during Covid no-one could get to one another to see each other. I spent very little time with my coach, and I don’t even work with that trainer anymore because it was just not possible to do that. So there’s been a lot of changes, and until last summer I felt like a lot of balls were up in the air and nothing was very consistent and I was always juggling something. But you’re constantly learning in this game. And for me it’s been a good time to have a hard reset on many things. I feel like I’ve dealt with a few things that were tougher to deal with, and at least I feel like I’ve come out of it in a better place.

I probably set my expectations a little wrong at the start of last year, but when you’re competitive it’s very hard to lower them. I expect to play at a very high level and if I don’t I’m not really even going to have a job. You can make a lot of excuses, but I don’t think excuses get you very far in. this game, so you just have to figure out a way to deal with whatever situation you find yourself in. After being on Tour for 20 years I know that things don’t always go your way, because it’s a difficult game. So, although I’ve been frustrated when I haven’t played as well as I want to, I have never let it take me to a breaking point.

I managed to turn my game around in the back end of last year when I was able to sort out my equipment. Because of Covid, I hadn’t seen the guy who fits my clubs at Titleist for about 18 months, and I was using a driver that he didn’t particularly like for me. I saw him last summer, and just changing that had a trickle-down effect on everything getting better through the bag. I was hitting the driver better, and because of that the confidence got a bit better, and it’s so crazy that a little thing like that just helped.
The driver is an important club for me. When I look at last year, from February to July, I felt like I was driving it into the rough all the time, but when I’m swinging well I drive the ball very well and that confidence filters through the bag. And as I got into the back end of last year and adjusted some of the golf aspects like my driver, I could start seeing the positives again. That was obviously very helpful and made it easier to adjust my attitude of ‘I’m over this’ to ‘I’m looking forward to playing and getting stuck into a new season’.

My game is in a very good place at the moment, and it’s in a place where I feel like I can get results and that has been born out this year, with six top-10 finishes from 18 starts and getting through to the Tour Championship after finishing fifth at the St Jude Championship and the BMW Championship. I’m in a good spot physically and mentally, and I’m still in what I would still call the prime of my career. I’ve got a lot of experience behind me, so it’s time to take advantage of everything I’ve put into my career at this point and hopefully I get into some situations where I can make it go my way on Sunday and win some big events and maybe tick off a couple of those boxes I have left.

Even at my age, It’s fairly easy for me to stay motivated because I haven’t really achieved everything I want to achieve in the game. There are still a few boxes to tick, and that’s my focus now for as long as I stay out here. Watching Phil Mickelson win the US PGA at the age of 51 certainly gives me hope that I can still play at a high level for another five years at least. I know he’s put an incredible amount of work in to being able to do that and I’m not taking that for granted, but I feel like I like I’m in pretty good shape physically and hopefully I can still be a top player.

The Majors are really what golf careers are defined by, more so than ever. I’d love to win more and be a multiple winner. At this point I need to be greedy because I don’t have much time. Certainly, the Open Championship is unfinished business for me, but I’m not going to be picky – I’ll take any of them!

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Tom Kim is having a moment. The 20-year-old Korean known for his love of fast food and his choice of the name “Tom” because of his affection for a children’s play train by the same name is suddenly accomplishing things that haven’t been accomplished since trains were the primary means of transportation for most of the world.

After winning the Wyndham Championship in August in just his 14th start on the PGA Tour, Kim crushed at the Presidents Cup, where his 2-3-0 record belied the reality that nobody was a bigger star and nobody changed the perception of their future more than him. Then he took Sunday’s Shriners Children’s Open over Patrick Cantlay, and suddenly he’s the No. 15 player in the world while winning two PGA Tour events faster (18 PGA Tour events) than Tiger Woods (20 events).

Let the hyperbole wash all the way over you, courtesy of Justin Ray.

Kim is the youngest to get his second PGA Tour win in 90 years. He’s the youngest international player since 1900 to win multiple times on the PGA Tour. The only comparison for what he’s done in his tiny career thus far is to invoke the name of the best to ever do it: Tiger Woods. Those men are the only two golfers to win multiple times on the PGA Tour since World War II, and Kim was younger; he doesn’t turn 21 until next summer.

So the obvious question, it seems, is what to make of all this. What … is this? It’s probably not the second coming of Tiger. I think we can all agree on at least that. But when you’re part of a statistical category that includes only yourself and a legend of his caliber, it’s also not nothing. Kim needs some sort of context and projection around what he’s achieved.

So, let’s start.

It would be easy to write off the Wyndham and the Shriners as two easy golf tournaments to win and discount what Kim’s achievements. However, Data Golf rates both tournaments among the 20 hardest for a regular PGA Tour pro to win throughout the year. Winning one might be an anomaly. Winning both, though? Hardly an aberration. Then there’s the way Kim has won his tournaments. He had good putting weeks in both, yes, but he also finished in the top 12 in approach shots in both events. Kim is a flusher, and flushers win a lot.

Statistically, Kim’s profile looks a bit like a slightly downgraded Collin Morikawa. There are much worse comps than “a slightly downgraded Collin Morikawa.” Morikawa is deeper off the tee, and thus gains more strokes in that category, but Kim is slightly better on and around the greens. While Morikawa is one of the best iron players of this (or any other) generation, Kim is a solid but not necessarily elite iron player. At least not yet.

So we arrive at the hardest portion of all of this to project: improvement. Can Kim make a leap as a 21-year-old or beyond to become a +1.5 or 2.0 strokes gained player (this is the very upper crust)? Or will he stay where he is (around a +1.0 player), which is still very good and pick off a few tournaments when he has hot putting weeks?

It might be instructive to take a look at Kim’s personality to catch a glimpse around the corner of his career. While Kim is playful and exciting on the course, it’s clear that he’s not necessarily excitable, which is an important distinction. As a 20-year-old, it’s quite easy to be excitable, but in situations where Kim had the opportunity to get out over his skis, he has refused. Case in point: He was asked on Saturday night at the Presidents Cup whether he wanted to play Justin Thomas on Sunday in singles. There’s not a good answer to this question, and Kim realized that and neutralized the entire situation.

“Anyone, really,” he said. “Someone’s got to play someone. So I just want to play with anyone and try to get a point for the team.”

The First Cut podcast crew is back to bring you their recap for the Shriners Children’s Open and the LIV Bangkok event. Follow & listen to The First Cut on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.

This is how somebody who is going to mature in the right way speaks at age 20. It creates a bullishness about his career from the mental and emotional side that he understands how to be a professional and what it takes to improve into a future that is wide open for him and his gifts. However, he combines it with an innocence that embodies the 2021 Padraig Harrington quote about how there’s a sweet spot between gaining experience and losing wisdom that’s a hell of a place to exist.

“I mean, I’m playing on the PGA Tour as a 20-year-old,” said Kim after his second win over the weekend at the Shriners. “It’s hard to get tired from this. I’m a 5-year-old at Disneyland, for sure. That’s the way I would pronounce it.”

Then there is the question of the majors. Kim is incredibly short off the tee for a top 20 player in the world (even Morikawa is quite a bit longer than he is). However, a few of the 2023 major venues- — namely Los Angeles Country Club and Oak Hill — might favor his game. The last time a major was held at Oak Hill, two of the shorter hitters in the game — Jason Dufner and Jim Furyk — were in the mix for the 2013 PGA Championship.

I don’t know what Tom Kim is going to be. Nobody does — not even Tom Kim. What I do know is that the PGA Tour is always in need of 20-year-old potential superstars who think rightly about the future even while soaking in the present. In a year in which there has been a lack of celebrating the right things, Kim represents so many of them that we love about golf, and it’s likely that he will for a long, long time.

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