When Jordan Spieth cooks at the Open, it’s one of the best watches in golf

The Open is such a dramatic change-up in style. That’s what makes it the most entertaining major of the year and no one is more fun to watch take it on that Jordan Spieth.

I think Jordan Spieth is going to win his second straight Open Championship. The odds of this happening are long, but I’m convinced it’s going to happen (note: I picked Patrick Reed before the tournament and he just scrambled to make the cut right on the number).

Watching Spieth work his way around a links setup is among the most fun you can have watching pro golf. When Tiger gets on a heater and starts throwing darts into flags, that’s more fun. It’s fun in a “let’s all freak the hell out together” panting with excitement kind of way. Spieth plotting around a British Open test is a much different experience. Instead of panting, you’re just smirking. It has an almost calming effect, at least the parts when he’s not taking 30 minutes to figure out how to take a drop and save a bogey.

Spieth is not in the lead at the midpoint of the 147th Open. He’s not even in the top 10. But after one of the most underwhelming stretches of his professional career, he’s looked like he has figured out this championship again. Spieth is 3-under, tied for 11th, and just three shots off the pace set by housemates Zach Johnson and Kevin Kisner. If not for a sloppy double bogey at the 15th hole on Thursday, he’d be just a shot from the lead.

That’s really been the only moment this week when you felt unsure of his prospects. At every other moment through 36 holes, I watched in complete “trust the process” mode and felt like everything was part and parcel with the plan. Is this unfounded nonsense? Maybe, but I know what I’ve watched and, after four years of this now, I have enough history to feel good about it. It’s not baseless.

There’s been some incredible shotmaking and creativity through 36 holes at a baked-out and then dampened Carnoustie. My two favorite shots both came from the defending champ. The first was on Thursday, when he putted around a pot bunker to near tap-in range just moments after a Golf Channel walking reporter said there was “absolutely zero chance of getting this within a couple feet of the flagstick.”

The second was on Friday, a chip shot from another greenside spot that Spieth said he probably couldn’t pull off again if he tried 100 times. Only he does pull these 1-in-100 shots off again. This is dirty. I think I could write 1000-word love letter about this shot alone.

All day he had the pace and when he got out of position, he’d get back in the right spot with some sort of recovery shot or another perfect up-and-on play like the one above. Sometimes it was a putt and other times it came through the air. There was the recovery shaped through trees, the few rare ones on this course, that flew from about 190 yards for pin-high and a birdie at the 10th. He saved par at the 7th with a putt from off the green that did not go in like the play above, but was almost as good.

Watching him on Friday was watching a player who felt fully confident in how to get around, whether he had full control or not. Spieth has been quite forthcoming that he does not have full control right now. “My swing is not exactly where I want it to be,” he said after the round. “It’s nowhere near where it was at Birkdale.

Tiger Woods, as he has been at many things in golf, is probably the best in the history of the game at being fully confident in getting around a course while not having full control of his swing.

Spieth thought he had something less than his B game from a ballstriking perspective. There were misses and ugly protracer images off his clubface. But nothing that felt defining of the day or round-wrecking and his 67 on the scorecard seemed corroborate it. It even felt on the high side.

There are strong counters to this expectation that he will win. Spieth is having the worst putting season of his career. It’s not just below his average, it’s legit bad, quite bad by the numbers. His work approaching the green has also dipped. There can easily be a few more double bogey mistakes like the 15th on Thursday. So you’re left to decide between season form or the belief, based on history and trust of that history, that the slump has to end. Based on four years and two days this week, I think it does end at the Open. Even if it doesn’t, watching him try and work it around on such a different test and demand of creativity should be as fun as it gets.

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Here’s your leaderboard at the midpoint at Carnoustie:

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