How Jordan Spieth Conquered His Augusta Demons

Augusta National is simultaneously the most beautiful and cruellest golf course on the planet. Just as a player sees the silhouette of Masters success on the horizon, so it jumps up and stops you in your tracks.

The list of high-profile names to have fallen foul of Augusta’s charming torture is long and in recent times has included both Rory McIlroy and Jordan Spieth. ‘Losing it’ - which let’s be honest, they both did - on Masters Sunday is undoubtedly more painful than any other day of the year.

The whole world, it seems, is watching with combined emotions of sympathy and masochism. Of course, once the dust has settled and the disaster can be placed into context, the challenge facing the player in question is to get over it.

But how do you rid yourself of the demons that have become so fiercely burnt into your memory? How for instance, did Jordan Spieth think he'd be able the stand on the 12th tee and block out the disaster that unfolded there in 2016?

While some might choose to ignore the scars, the American sought to confront them head on. In December of 2016, Spieth returned to Augusta. Here's how Jordan Spieth conquered his Augusta demons…

“I was very nervous when I got on 12 tee, and I hit an 8-iron over the bunker to about 15 feet,” he said in 2017. “I was pumped to hit the green, and then I hit my putt and it just about stopped short on the front lip and fell in for two. I probably gave like a big fist pump. I was walking around with my hands up, like ‘demon's gone!’

"And I went back the next day. We played it the next morning and I hit a 9-iron this time to a left pin, and it landed about three feet beyond the hole and it was really, really soft, and it sucked back and almost went in.

"So I got two twos out of No. 12 the first time back – the last two times I played the hole, I made birdie. Guys, we have some demons to get rid of here, I'd appreciate if y'all stood to the side of the tee box while I do my work here. That was cool.”

Spieth finished T-11th in 2017 and then 3rd in 2018, where a birdie on the 72nd hole would have meant he shot 62 and matched Patrick Reed's winning score.

He was T-21st in 2019 and T-46th in 2020, his worst finish at the event. Still, he has played some amazing golf at Augusta and despite his lack of form, you can never rule him out when he's striding the famed Georgia fairways.