It was just before noon on an unseasonably crisp June morning when Jordan Spieth finally figured out his golf swing.
This was Tuesday, two days before the opening round of the Memorial Tournament, and the Masters champion was practicing on the right side of the expansive Muirfield Village driving range. He pulled his cell phone out of his golf bag and handed it to caddie Michael Greller. The former schoolteacher crouched behind him and pressed the record button as Spieth launched a towering iron shot into the cavernous sky. Then he handed over the results.
Spieth pressed play and a slight smile emerged across his lips.
"That's it right there," he proclaimed. "That's the best swing since Augusta."
For all of the consternation over all of the contemplation that Tiger Woods and other struggling golfers seem to have in regard to changing their swings, it often goes unnoticed or maybe just overlooked that golfers who are prospering similarly continue making tweaks to their move through the ball.
Spieth didn't go from winning the Masters in April and start cruising. He finished one stroke out of a playoff two weeks ago at the Crowne Plaza Invitational at Colonial and a respectable 30th place last week at the AT&T Byron Nelson. But still seeking to unlock some hidden secret on the range, he'd been waiting for that eureka moment, the one which unfolded through the video on his phone.
Just in case we were to accuse him of hyperbole --
or even worse, trying to fix something that wasn't broken -- Spieth
employed that swing change while posting a 4-under 68 during Thursday's
opening round, just 4 strokes behind early pacesetters Bo Van Pelt and Hideki Matsuyama.