‘If he wins again he might not stop’ – will Spieth join Grand Slam club?

World number one Scottie Scheffler has just won a tournament by eight shots. Bryson DeChambeau is back in the winners’ circle on LIV Golf. Rory McIlroy has finally completed the career Grand Slam.

There are narratives around every corner at the US PGA Championship, the next major of the season, which gets under way at Quail Hollow on Thursday.

And yet one golfer is going under the radar – but his plotline could be the biggest of them all.

It is 10 years since Jordan Spieth’s incredible breakout season on the PGA Tour, where he won the Masters, the US Open and went close at both the Open Championship and the US PGA.

In 2017 he added the Claret Jug, to secure an annual shot at the career Grand Slam.

However, eight attempts later – and none particularly close – the 31-year-old arrives at this latest effort as a side story but perhaps ready to write headlines of his own. Three top 10s in 2025 suggests he is on the climb.

The Texan has not won any tournament since April 2022 and it is easy to forget just how good peak-Spieth was.

As a junior, he was a dominant force in US golf. So much so says Fields, that he was in demand from the moment he turned 13.

“We started recruiting him from eighth grade,” Fields says. “The first time I saw him play a pitch shot, I was like ‘oh my! We’re getting that guy!’.

“It was a hell of a process. Everyone wanted Jordan Spieth.”

Understandably so.

In 2011, Spieth became only the second player in history to win multiple US Junior championships – Tiger Woods being the other – and was making noise on the PGA Tour as an amateur even before starting college.

“I remember exactly where I was when he told me he was coming to us,” Fields says. “February 7, three in the afternoon and he called me. It was a monumental moment.”

For Fields and the University of Texas, Spieth was another great player on a long list of famous alumni that includes 10 major championship titles from the likes of Ben Crenshaw, Justin Leonard and latterly, Scheffler.

Spieth was only there for a year and a semester but he made his mark, helping the college clinch the national championships in 2012 before turning pro at the end of the calendar year.

And in Fields’ eyes, there was something different about the steely-eyed 19-year-old.

While McIlroy waited 11 years for his Green Jacket, Spieth ripped up the Masters from the moment he arrived at Augusta.

A runner-up on debut in 2014, he won wire-to-wire in 2015, equalling the then tournament record of 18 under par and recording 28 birdies over the four days – three more than anyone else in history.

He then backed it up by taking the second major of the season, becoming the first since Woods in 2002 to win the Masters and the US Open in the same year.

On to the Old Course at St Andrews for The Open and Spieth was once again in the mix, finishing just a shot outside of a play-off ultimately won by Zach Johnson.

He still almost grabbed a third major of the year at the US PGA, then held in August. There, he finished runner-up to Australia’s Jason Day.

The result lifted him to world number one and he would win the Tour Championship and FedEx Cup to round off a wonderful season.

Two major titles and a score to par of 51 under across the four championships made it “one of the great years ever”, according to Crenshaw at the time.

Spieth’s CV consists of 13 PGA Tour wins, three majors and a Ryder Cup haul of eight wins and three ties from 18 matches.

It is certainly impressive – but perhaps not the amount of victories he initially threatened to post.

Going three years without winning a tournament is anathema to a man who seemed poised for a long run as world number one.

“I know there is pain involved in not winning,” says Fields. “All golfers develop scar tissue.”

After winning The Open in almost miraculous fashion in 2017 – his three-shot lead going into the final round was wiped out in four holes before he picked up five shots in four holes from the 14th to win by three – Spieth has only two more victories on his resume.

In that time, he has got married, had two children with a third on the way, done a heavy amount of work on his swing and, last year, had significant surgery to fix a long-standing wrist injury.

His major record has been inconsistent over the past five seasons with four top-10 finishes in the sport’s biggest tournaments.

“His whole life has been in evolution,” says Fields. “But nothing has changed in his brain. I just think he is re-balancing. Rory did the same thing – I think Tiger did it five times.

“It doesn’t change who these guys are.”

Like McIlroy, Spieth is one of golf’s most recognisable personalities. A player whose glorious highs are mirrored by devastating lows – all conducted to the soundtrack of his on-course chatter with stoic caddie Michael Greller.

Nevertheless, Fields is convinced Spieth will start winning tournaments again and, as if to underline his old coach’s confidence, he raced up the leaderboard on the final day at the Byron Nelson in nine under par to finish fourth, his lowest round for four years.

It was the third time he has finished in the top 10 so far in 2025.

“I guess all that there is to say is that it feels close,” Spieth said afterwards. “I’m not going to try to force anything, and this was a good improvement.”

In the past, Spieth has talked about winning the career Grand Slam at the US PGA Championship as “the elephant in the room” and that doing so would feel like he had “accomplished golf”.

Before McIlroy’s Masters win, the other five members of that exclusive club had all completed golf’s holy grail within three attempts.