Jordan Spieth’s pursuit of a fourth major was hampered by an illness he picked up early in the week at the US Open.
Bob Dichiara / USA TODAY
Brooklyn, Massachusetts. – Jordan Spieth is likely to leave Boston in turmoil, which is understandable given his week.
It all started on Tuesday when he returned to the house he rents with Justin Thomas after the Red Sox’s 6-1 win over the Oakland A.
After taking a shower, Spieth hit the bed when his temperature changed dramatically. Spieth was freezing.
Even if a pair of his clothes got sweated and dug under the covers wasn’t enough to warm him up, at that point he knew he had a fever. Each movement produced more goosebumps, so like a mummy in a cocoon, the three-time main hero was in trouble.
“It wasn’t like feeling food poisoned,” said Speth, trying to describe his symptoms after the 1 – 71 third round that left him 3 times at the US Open. “It was like, ‘My stomach was upset but not like food poisoning, but I didn’t want to move a muscle and couldn’t sleep.'”
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With an 8:30 a.m. tee scheduled for Wednesday with Thomas, Scotty Scheffler and Sam Burns, Speth finally found the energy to text Thomas and canister Michael Griller that he wouldn’t be able to do it.
Finally, after getting some sleep, Spieth woke up at 6:30 a.m. after sweating through three T-shirts, but the fever had broken.
Spieth went to the doctor and the diagnosis was a 24-48 hour bug that seemed to run through other players and significant others.
“If she comes a day later, I won’t play,” said Speth. “I got out here on a Wednesday, hit a few shots and went to hit a pair of wedges and on the first wedge fully swinging, I had to leave my team at it to try and go puke.”
Prior to Thursday’s first round, Spieth could go through the entire bag at range without having to look for a place to get sick, but starting the round with four bogeys in the first six holes was changing his view if he should call her on a turn or turn. Then two birds on the last three holes gave Spith enough juice to finish the round, 2-on-72.
“My leg felt like it got gunshots, like jelly, and I kind of felt nauseous,” Speth said. I was on medication and it helped with my nausea. When your body is fighting something, you just need to not try to do something that is physically and mentally draining at the US Open.”
Due to illness, Spieth never recovered properly and during his first three rounds he sometimes felt he didn’t have a good sense of the lines on the tee or where he should miss them.
Also, Spieth is not a fan of the elevated tee shots common at The Country Club, which makes the tee shots strange to his eye and need more practice, which he didn’t get.
“The weirdness, the interior and exterior shaping, and having to choose where you’re going, that’s definitely what I like,” said Speth. “I think it’s a great golf course just for me personally, only a few holes I find it really hard to know exactly what to play because there are so many loaded shots going downhill in the wind. I just tried to hit it so low that it got really steep And that is frustrating.”