Jordan Spieth’s thoughts on his Career Grand Slam attempts are fascinating

Jordan Spieth is very aware of what his pursuit of the Career Grand Slam has been like.

Golf and the world that we live in with it can be very prisoner of the moment-y.

To be clear this is fine and normal. With golf being a sport where individuals win, when one single person has the entirety of our focus then we have a tendency to live fully in that idea.

We are at a point now, as a result of this phenomenon, where the Career Grand Slam is at the forefront of our minds like never before. When Tiger Woods climbed the mountain back in 2000 we did not have the internet the way we do now or social media or television coverage discussing the idea around the clock. Times have changed and Rory McIlroy joining the club a month ago has made us all extremely hyper-aware of Club CGS.

This sequence of events has brightened the lights on Jordan Spieth’s career trophy case and more specifically than anything the absence of a Wanamaker Trophy in it. We were just hand-delivered a CGS... why can’t Jordan give us another? It only seems fair, golf!

While McIlroy had been chasing the CGS since 2011, Jordan has only been doing so since 2017 when he won his Open Championship. From a tally standpoint that marks eight different PGA Championships that he has fallen short. Unfortunately... he has mostly fallen very short.

Jordan Spieth PGA Championship Finishes Since Attempting CGS (event winner)

• 2017............... T28 (Justin Thomas)
• 2018............... T12 (Brooks Koepka)
• 2019................ T3 (Brooks Koepka)
• 2020............... T71 (Collin Morikawa)
• 2021................ T30 (Phil Mickelson)
• 2022................ T34 (Justin Thomas)
• 2023................ T29 (Brooks Koepka)
• 2024................. T43 (Xander Schauffele)

An often-made quip these days used to be that Tiger Woods (2019 Masters) and Phil Mickelson (2021 PGA Championship) had won majors more recently than McIlroy and Spieth, but the former taking care of business at Augusta himself and establishing his CGS in the process has isolated the latter in that regard.

But is it not strange how we as a golf world haven’t talked about Jordan’s CGS quest the same way we did Rory’s? Perhaps some of that is that a green jacket is what eluded Rory and there is a certain aura that comes with that which doesn’t, all due respect, with the PGA or any other major for that matter. Annually though, Rory has dealt with that question in bold and capital letters where Jordan has kind of floated by. Perhaps that is also representative of the fact that Rory has maintained top form as a player and Jordan has not.

To his credit, Jordan seems aware of whatever we want to call this. Speaking on Tuesday at Quail Hollow he noted that he has not exactly come close to his own CGS since having an opportunity to get there.

Coming to grips with the fact that no one has really asked about it is maybe the most telling thing here. Scroll back up and look at the list of PGA Championship winners since Jordan has had a chance to reach immortality. Consider that Justin Thomas has won the event twice, including the last time it was at Quail Hollow. Recall that all of Brooks Koepka’s major championships (five of them, two more than Jordan) have happened in this period. Collin Morikawa and Xander Schauffele have each won the event and added an Open Championship as well in the time.

When Jordan Spieth hoisted the Claret Jug in 2017 a CGS felt inevitable for him. Maybe it still is.

Right now though... he knows that people are going to be asking about it in an entirely different way until that inevitability does or does not happen.