Sunday Sitdown with Willie Geist - ATHLETIC GREATS: Jordan Spieth on Chasing Perfection and Reaching Golf’s Highest Stages (July 2018)

Episode Date: February 8, 2026

Professional golfer Jordan Spieth rose from teenage prodigy to major champion at a pace rarely seen in the sport of golf. In this conversation from July 2018, Spieth sits down with Willie Geist to reflect on how competing in and winning golf’s major championships reshaped his life and career. Plus, he opens up about chasing perfection, handling comparisons to legends, and staying grounded amid early success. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Hey guys, Willie Geist here with another edition of the Sunday Sit Down podcast. Today's guest is one of the best in golf, maybe the best in golf, Jordan Spieth, the 24-year-old phenom, went down to Dallas, to his home golf club. I met the three-time major winner on his home turf. We talked a little bit inside, then we went out on the range. It was in Dallas. It was about 173 degrees outside, so we stayed out there for a little while. I think I got three shots off with a pitching wedge. My third hit the target he was trying to hit.

I felt good because I topped the first two, but that's a thing. You're standing over a pitching wedge with Jordan Spee staring at you and analyzing your swing. Really amazing story. I mean, he truly a prodigy in every sense of the word. He entered his first PGA professional golf tournament at 16 years old. They gave him a sponsor exemption to get in. He finished 16th in the tournament. Became a global star when he was 21 years old by winning the Masters.

Remember the year before he almost won it. at 20 years old. And I have to say, spending the day with him, incredibly grounded, incredibly family-oriented. He's engaged to his high school sweetheart. He's got his family around him. His brother, his younger brother, played basketball at Brown University, his star there. He's the basketball star. Jordan's the golf star. And Ellie, his sister, who has special needs, continues to be the inspiration for Jordan Spee. So we get in to all of that. We talk about Tiger Woods, which I thought was really interesting, Jordan, talking not only about the state of Tiger's game and whether or not Jordan thinks he can continue to win majors,

but also changes in Tiger's life about the kind of guy he is on the tour now, about him being a better friend and socializing and hanging out with the guys in a way he never did, kind of getting out of his bubble. I should point out, as we sat down for our interview, the claret jug, yes, the claret jug that is owned currently by Jordan Speeth because he won the British Open last year was right between us, which I thought was just like a baller move. Yeah, let's sit down and have an interview,

and the whole time we're talking, you're going to just stare, at my claret jug. He's now defending next week. He'll be defending a week and a half or so his title at the British Open. He'll be back there. So a fun conversation with a great guy and truly one of the all-time greats in golf already at 24 years old. Jordan Speath on the Sunday Sit Down podcast. Thank you for doing this man. Yeah, sure. Of course. You know what move I like? A guy who brings his claret jug to the interview. Yeah. It just really sends a message when you set it right down. Yeah, it's shiny. It kind of, you know, I'm not very very. very good looking so it takes away from that and you know the focus is that what it is

a distraction yeah exactly you're getting ready to defend that jug in and just a little while here how you feeling about your game going into carnoosey yeah i feel good this uh i'm gonna have a little break here prior to going over there which will be nice i'll be fully refreshed and ready to go just like last year um it's really cool the open is uh the oldest and and you know most prestigious and most historic tournament that we play in all year. And it's pretty special because golf's kind of got that to its brand anyways. So the open, it's probably the coolest trophy that our sport has to offer. And so to kind of have it in my possession is great,

but it'll be pretty sad to give it back, hopefully for only a week. What's it like to defend the title versus going into a tournament you haven't won before? Is that added pressure? Does it make it easier? I've already won this thing, or how do you approach that? Yeah, I haven't felt that it makes much of a difference. And especially with a tournament like the Open where we go to a different golf course, it's not like you're going back with the same memories on the same course.

And on some tournaments where that is the case, I've looked at it positively, where I know I'm able to do it on this golf course. We've done it before. You know, the hardest part is not comparing the previous years and trying to live up to that year. Because every tournament, whether you win or you don't, is a totally different. path. And you never have two wins that are the same. There's always some form of excitement or, honestly, ideally, some kind of mundaneness to it, which isn't great for the person watching, but the more boring we can make it the better as a golfer. Well, you certainly didn't do that

last year. No, that was, if I had to script it out myself, I would have probably taken a different route. When you go back and watch that, does it blow your mind how you pulled that off, moving the media trucks and the whole thing? I mean, it was, yeah, I guess what blows my mind a little bit is the internal struggle I was going through that day, the battle mentally through those four hours of falling and losing a lead and getting into the negative thoughts of What happens if I don't win? Is that a big disappointment? Are those going to be questions to answer again and again and again?

Do you lose belief in yourself? I mean, this is all stuff that can pop into your head while you're playing. And I think just the ability to kind of block that out and zero in and kind of make a turnaround for the last five holes of the tournament and play the best five-hole stretch of golf I've ever played from some of the worst golf I've ever played leading up to it. but just as kind of crazy and long as that day seemed, the absolute just switch that flipped is kind of,

I look back and I know what I did, which is great, but I'm surprised at how effective it was. Would you go birdie, eagle, birdie, birdie, birdie? Yeah, birdie, eagle, birdie, par to finish. Par, right. So how do you do that? Because people who aren't elite athletes, but people who understand how mental the game of golf is,

don't get how you could just shut that out, how you don't start thinking about other tournaments where maybe it came undone for you a little bit. What's the secret to that mentally? Or do you even know? I'll probably, I'll have some more experiences, I think, similar to it and maybe be able to write about it someday. But for me, in this instance, it was being very focused on the process. It was creating a new goal, a new tournament, a new scenario with five holes to go. I went from the 13th green, felt like I stole a shot out. I was now the chaser instead of the person being chased, and that freed me up a bit. It allowed me to play with more aggressive swings. But most importantly,

when I walked off that green before the next T-box on the 14th hole, I was able to completely throw out everything that had just happened and set a completely new goal that, hey, I'm one down to Matt, but I know that if I play these holes this way,

all that preparation that went in, if I hit this shot here, but if it misses, it's here, same on the next hole. If I just take it, you know, one shot where I know where the best miss is, and I know I'm striking the ball well, I'm going to give myself enough putting opportunities that

I should have a put to win each hole coming in. And that was my goal, is to have a put from inside of him. Because now all of a sudden, he's going to play a little safer. I've kind of had the wheels fall off, and so he's going to play a conservative-type finish, and I've just got to be the one that has that next putt that I can win that hole on. Just take it one hole at a time. You have a short memory, too, right? That helps.

Exactly. That so focused on that next hole going forward that you'd, that you'd, that you'd can forget about what happened before. That's the toughest part in golf, is to forget about the last shot and focus on the next. And there's been plenty of times where I've tried and not been able to do it, but I was able to garner that focus that Sunday.

So you're gonna go outside in a few minutes and have a clinic, a junior clinic, for a bunch of kids who look up to you in the way you looked up to other players when you're about their age. And the truth is at your age of 24, it wasn't that long ago that you were those kids. It's gotta be,

incredibly cool for you to be able to hold a clinic like this, to do the work you do through your foundation, and to sort of give back in a way that you hope some guys you knew growing up might be able to do for you. Yeah, I think a lot of the credit is owed to my predecessors on the tour. On the PGA tour, this is not abnormal. This is the majority of guys recognize the situation they're in, they set up foundations, and they're able to go out and do stuff with Junior Golf, whether it's clinics or it's, you know, donations are being involved with the first T or drive-chip and putt, these other initiatives that are, you know, growing and becoming really great outlets for anybody to be able to play golf, which is obviously golf's historically been looked at as kind of

a, you know, higher income sport. But that's not necessarily the case anymore with these other initiatives that are growing. So I remember it probably was only like six or seven years ago where I was watching PGA Tour players give clinics and sitting there going, you know, honestly, I mean, just the competitor in me, I was like, yeah, that's not that great. I know I can do that. And so I'm out here with these, you know, top junior golfers in the country. And I know that they're sitting there going, yeah, okay.

I know how to hit a draw and a fade. Like the normal clinic stuff doesn't work because they can all do that. So I think that what I'm able to offer is more of a glimpse into preparation as you continue to go, you know, level to level to level through amateur golf, college golf, professional golf, and give them kind of a glimpse into what, you know, a daily routine is and how that changes and take shape and how to kind of rest and recover. I honestly, these guys all and these guys and girls love, to play golf, they love to practice and they're doing it all the time. And I used to,

I used to be at the course every day all day, but playing more tournaments and longer tournaments, four-round events and having it be kind of your life and your career, you have to learn the balance of the recovery. And I think I can actually help more with that than I can, just the physical side of hitting golf balls. Your family talks about you choosing to be outside in the 100-degree summer heat of Dallas and practicing every day as a kid, practicing as you came up through juniors. Do you remember the moment when your love of golf set in and you said, I know I want to be a professional golfer? Those are probably two different points. The love of golf and then the wanting to be a professional golfer, or at least recognizing that it could be

a reality. The first part, the falling in love with the game, I was 12 turning 13. And that's when I really started to want to be at the golf course every single day in the summer. We had a great group of juniors at the club, Brookhaven that I grew up at here in the Dallas area. And they were all a little older than me, anywhere from 14 years old to 17 years old. But we were all kind of on a similar skill level.

And so we'd go out and just, we'd spend the entire day at the course, but it wasn't all just grinding on the range. Like we'd go hit some balls, but then we'd play. After we'd done playing, we'd go play flag football in the parking lot. And then, you know, once someone hit a car and the car alarm went off, we'd have to go back and we'd end up, you know, playing another nine holes in the evening. And I just loved spending the time out at the club and with that group of friends. And I started to realize that the work that I was putting in on course, that the ball was in my hands, that,

you know, I was the one with the last shot with, you know, with three seconds left on the shot clock. that, you know, I was in control of my own destiny, and I started to see that in tournament results, and I started to shoot some really low scores that were just so much fun to shoot when I was, like, anywhere from 12 to 15 years old. And it was probably when I was 15, and I had kind of risen up in the rankings, and I won the U.S. junior in New Jersey, and it was at that moment where I kind of looked at it, like, man, this could be a reality, something. someday to play on the tour.

And I love the idea of it too because I love the game so much. So that gets us to 16-year-old Jordan Speath, writing a letter trying to get a sponsor exemption for the Byron Nelson. What gave you the confidence to sit down at 16 years old and asked to go play in a PGA tournament? My dad, you know, he, it's the right thing to do. It's what a lot of players are doing, whether they're juniors, amateurs or professionals, to try and get exemptions. But my dad helped me write that letter and kind of word it the right way.

I knew that there was a chance I could get it. I thought that it would probably be the next year. But I just wrote, you know, a letter saying these are, this is what I've been able to do. You know, I've committed the University of Texas and I kind of threw that in there because a lot of the guys on the committee are University of Texas along. Yeah, so I thought that that might help. Yeah, so I was kind of sucking up a little bit, but also, you know, playing to the, you know, the strings I needed to play to, but I remember getting the call. I was in class my junior year at Jesuit here in Dallas, and I remember getting a call, you know, phone vibrating, and I checked it after that class was over, and I probably checked it during the class, let's be honest. And I saw that it was a number. It was around the time that they were going to be giving exemptions out. And so I saw there was a voicemail, and I listened to it. And it was. was the tournament chairman. And so I ran outside after class was ended

and made a call in the courtyard. And he said that I got the exemption. And I was at the course even longer the next few evenings preparing even though it was two or three months off. Well, it paid off, obviously, because you finished 16th at 16 years old in that tournament. When you walked away on Sunday, what did you know about yourself from that experience?

Did you say, OK, now I know I can do this professionally? Yeah, I actually learned a lot. I learned a lot. I was proud of sitting back and not kind of overhyping it, but instead looking at how these other guys were practicing in a tournament week, what they were working on, how they were working, how much time they were spending at the course. I play practice rounds with some of the veterans. I remember playing with Justin Leonard, University of Texas alum, and an open championship winner and a multiple-time PGA tour winner. So somebody who had been through the ropes, Gary Woodland, another guy who had been on tour for a while, really powerful player, and now a good friend of mine. And just trying to learn. But I also, at the end of the week, it was, okay, I felt like I played well,

but I felt like I could have played better. I felt like T to Green, I wasn't really that strong. You know, I putted pretty well, I chipped pretty well. But one of the guys I was paired with the first two days was actually leading the golf tournament and almost won it. And so I was able to see what that looked like firsthand, guys that were what it took to lead a golf tournament through a couple days.

And I was kind of fortunate that it worked out that way. So you weren't just happy to be there. You were competitive once you were there. For sure, absolutely. I didn't know any other way, I guess. Still don't. And then a few years later, as we fast forward at 19 years old, you win your first professional tournament.

What did that feel like as a kid who was still, who just left college essentially and now was winning on the PGA tour. At the time, I felt like I was playing with house money. I started the year with no status anywhere, and I was off of the same exemptions, writing letters, the beginning of the year, to try and get exemptions into tournaments without a job, and then worked my way into a PGA tour card,

status for the year and a card for the next year prior to that tournament. So I felt like I was playing with House Money, which is just all you need in golf is to feel that way while you're playing, to be able to feel the freedom and the fearlessness that it takes to win. And, you know, I got a little fortunate. I hold a bunker shot on my last hole of regulation that was going a little by the hole and hit the pin and went in. And then outlasted kind of a five-hole playoff, making PARs, and it was enough.

And it was a whirlwind because I hopped on a plane that night to go to the Open Championship that I wasn't in until, you know, I got the last spot because of winning. the John Deere. It was just a, I don't really feel like I got the time to enjoy or recognize what had happened that year. But that cemented me as like a full-time member on tour. I could then play in the playoffs and I was able to work my way onto the President's Cup team and represent the United States with the best players from our country later that year. I had turned 20 years old. And it was just kind of bizarre. I mean, it was the year before I was in college, watching and just hoping that someday I'd get a chance to play in a writer cup or president's cup

and watching these guys compete in the majors and knowing that I was going to start my journey professionally soon, but thinking it might take three or four years and, you know, within 12 months, it was a reality. It was crazy. And you're rookie of the year and everybody who files golf and on tour knows who you are, but I think it's fair to say it was the 2014 Masters where you came that close to winning the thing at 20 years old. where the rest of the world opened its eyes and said, who is this guy? And you became a household name. Do you remember what that experience and that tournament did,

not just for your confidence, but for your life and your career in terms of your visibility and your celebrity and people knowing who you are? Yeah, a bit. You know, the Masters is different from any other tournament. It just, it has a non-golf audience that's, you know, much more vast than any PGA tour event or major. It just has that kind of prestigious label to it and that brand, the green jacket. And I didn't feel any extra pressure that day other than I had put myself in very few positions to win on a Sunday

given I had only had less than a year as a tour member up until that moment. But I didn't feel like I couldn't do it. I felt like I certainly had the capabilities. and I came out on Sunday, you know, 3 under through 7 and taken the lead by two or three shots. And my game felt great. And I just, you know, I made a couple mistakes, a couple kind of rookie mistakes of backing off instead of keeping the pedal down, losing a little bit of patience. And I lost to Bubba Watson, a guy who had already been through and won a Masters two years before. And I was able to look back on what he did that day that I didn't do.

but I recognized a little bit about, recognized a little bit of the added kind of exposure and being recognized more often places than I was before, but it took another level after winning it in 2015. That was where the celebrity status kind of took a, you know, a major growth, I guess, which isn't what most people do it for, and especially not myself,

but it kind of comes with the territory of what we love to do. Well, by all accounts, you've done really well with all the attention you get. You've sort of remembered who you are, you've kept your family clothes, so when you went in 15,

the Masters and the U.S. Open and do what you did at the Masters, which is tying Tiger's record for the 72 whole score and all the rest of it, and you're starting to be mentioned with names, just in terms of achievements like Jack Nicholas, you know, the youngest to win three legs of the slam

and Tiger Woods and Ben Hogan, talking about the U.S. Open in terms of your age. How do you, and how did you then, keep your life normal when everything around you is changing? It definitely changed a bit, right? I mean, I moved into a bigger house and I got a new car. And like, you know, like the, it wasn't like I was still in the apartment that I was in, you know, my first year on tour and I wasn't driving the same car that I did.

And I kind of regret not staying in that stage longer and longer and longer. But it was, I just feel very fortunate that, I mean, I was raised by parents who preached humility very much. So setting goals, being very focused on having fun. I mean, like legitimately, just having fun. And it's so easy when you get these expectations and you get to a certain status where you have, you know, haters. You have people that just want to see you fail. It's just what happens.

But the initial reaction of seeing that at 21, 22 years old, it's been difficult at times making that transition over to, you know, it's actually. actually a great thing if you have haters. That means that you're at a certain level that that only breeds that, right? And so, and not caring about it. And not caring about the good things. The good stuff, the being talked up, the positivity is just as detrimental as focusing on the negative comments because you get very ego-driven. And it's very important to be more driven into what you just love to do every single day. And I'm starting to kind of realize that this year.

And not, you know, last year, the last couple years were a little bit trying in the comparisons to 2015, which is only natural. And when you look back, why wouldn't that be the question that I'm being asked all the time? But it's not necessarily fair, but, you know, life's not fair. And I should be very pleased with where I am in my career and look at it very positively. And at times I was looking at it as I was failing. which is crazy, right? I mean, it's kind of crazy to say, but you can get beaten down a little bit,

but you can also get an oversense of kind of an ego outlook on things and be very driven by that. And I'm starting to do a better job of getting back to the 12-year-old that fell in love with the game and getting very kind of mastery-driven, very focused on the process, and getting lost in the practice. and the competing. Well, I was surprised to read that after the 2016 Masters, you said you sort of stopped loving going to the golf course for a while

and that it hung over your head for that season and haunted you a little bit. How did you shake that? Because it was such a public spectacle and a tournament you had won the year before. How did you come out of that? Well, I think it was kind of a process, right? I mean, I shouldn't have needed any results because in general I didn't do anything wrong except for execute the wrong way. And that happens.

I mean, in our sport, you know, you just go through mis-execution. It was poorly timed shots of the poorly timed positions, but it wasn't because of the moment. It was just, you know, I actually wasn't hitting the ball that well that week. I was getting away with it. And then finally, you know, it caught up with me on the, you know, on the wrong hole and where I couldn't miss it short right, where that was my miss the whole week. I looked at it from a, when I started to look at it from an execution standpoint and a very on-course standpoint, it actually helped a lot because I said, okay, what am I going to do to get better so that I'm more consistent with my ball striking?

And in 2017, I did that. I ended up, you know, T to Green being ranked second and tour for the year and struck the ball the best I'd ever hit it in my life. And that was driven by being in a scenario where the pressure is heightened, but then you don't necessarily execute. And looking at it as that's part of the game, that's part of the learning curve, helped a lot. The results obviously helped. You know, I won three or four tournaments later in Fort Worth at a hometown event, closing a tournament out kind of in dramatic fashion with like a chip in and a long pod. And then last year's Open Championship being in a similar situation, losing a lead in a major on the back nine.

And being able to draw off the good and the bad from experiences prior and flip the switch, set a new goal, and to win that week kind of got it to its last leg. And then I had to get over number 12 myself at Augusta. And then this year on Sunday, I sit up there in between clubs, hit the smart shot and verdied it.

And I kind of laughed and I gave a reaction on the T because it was the first time I hadn't hit it in the water on a Sunday there, probably ever. It's just a bad number, bad pin. But again, it's not situational. It's just one of those shots where my miss is just the bad miss on that hole. On that day, because the pins on the right side. So it's not the way the public looks at it, but I don't need to try and convince anybody

else. And I got very focused on myself and I was able to kind of go about it that way. Because the public wants to make it about the pressure of Sunday at the Masters, and for you it wasn't that. No, and it shouldn't have necessarily shown that way, because if that's going to come up, it's not going to come up on the 12th hole with a nine iron. It would come up on a much harder situation than that, whether it's just getting started the first few holes or it's 16, 17, 18, right, when you're trying to get it done at the end.

For me, it just missed execution in the middle of the round and almost brought it back at the end. And, you know, unfortunately, because it's a master's and because the whole, and, you know, losing a lead, that's what made it kind of this huge negative blow up, but it really wasn't. It was just, like I said, the on-course execution and the looking at it that way. It's just very difficult for a while to look at it that way because all I'm questioned about is the other side of it. Right.

To your point about the haters, I don't know if you saw this quote, Rory McElroy, said the other day that you are the most underrated player in God. golf. He said he and Snedeker were having a conversation about how you're actually underrated as great as you are and all the things you've done, that because you're that great, they try to nitpick and find negative stuff. Do you think you're an underrated golfer? I don't really care about ratings. I mean, to be honest, at this point, I've gotten to not really not really care about ratings. I would say there's actually somebody

who I think is the most underrated player on the PJ Tour. It's Mark Leishman. Not necessarily a household name yet, but somebody who's, I would say, is the most underrated. So I don't know. It's an incredibly nice thing for those guys to say, a couple friends of mine.

But I'm trying hard to be, you know, very against any kind of ratings or focus from the outside and and again, just do what I love to do because I love to do it and try to win not because I want the trophy, but because the process of competing is so much fun for me. Part of the fun of watching you rise over the last few years is seeing your family celebrated with you, your parents and your brother and your sister Ellie. Can you just talk a little bit about Ellie and what she means to you and your family and how to you. How to you?

nice it must be to have her at your side through all this? Yeah, Ellie's been mine and my brother's biggest inspiration, cheerleader through everything. She's grown into like a young woman now, which is like bizarre

and not really cool to think about, to be honest. But she's amazing. She's so much fun to be around. to have her out at golf tournaments and for her, whether it's good or bad, to give you a hug at the end and not really caring or knowing what the results are. I mean, it makes you recognize where happiness comes from. It's not from results.

You know, it's not for, it's in the little things. It's in controlling, you know, how your outlook is on life. And you can control that. I mean, and she shows that. And it really is so much fun having her out there when she's able to come out and be a part of the tournament. I love hearing that your parents' philosophy treated all three of you exactly equally. Yes, you were the golf prodigy, but Ellie was going to give every bit as much attention as you were, your brother were at his basketball game. And I think that probably contributes to your humility as you sit here today.

Yeah, I mean, I'd argue that Ellie being the baby was probably a very, a little more spoiled than we were. They probably treated her a little bit easier than us too. But, you know, I'm very type A and firstborn. And then Steven's a pretty typical, you know, personality. He has more patience than me, less stubborn. And then, you know, Ellie's more the baby. But yeah, I mean, very fortunate the way we were raised.

Certainly don't take a day without counting my blessings for that for sure. I think we're going to go hit some golf balls in a sec, but when I ask you about these kids looking up to you, one of the guys you looked up to growing up as Tiger Woods, of course, as every young golfer did. What's your assessment of where his game is right now? So many people are wondering, can he win the four more majors? Do you think he's still got it in him? To win four more majors or to compete and win? To continue to compete and maybe get to Jack at 18 majors. You know, winning a major is so difficult.

Just because he's won 14 before doesn't mean that that next one's any easier than anyone that he's won before. In fact, the next one could be harder than anyone he's ever had to win. I believe having played a number of rounds with him now this year, that he's back as a solid contender and one of the top PGA Tour players in the game right now. And therefore, he's fully capable of winning any tournament that he plays in. And that's probably the easiest way to leave it. He is 100% his game and his health, and everything is in a situation where he's happy. He's happier off the golf course probably than he's ever been.

He's been more involved with his kids. He's been more involved with us players. He's got probably more friends than he had. It's hard for me to speak to that because I wasn't out here when he was in his 0-4-05, you know, just winning 12 times a year. But he seems to want to grow the game and really help us out, which is amazing, right? For us growing up watching this guy dominate to now he's like, you know, reaching in and trying to help us out.

It's just, it's a bizarre scenario. But a really cool one at that. Kind of a dream come true for a young golfer? Yeah. It wasn't even really, like you never really even dreamt it. You didn't really even think that it could happen. and you just wanted to be able to compete with him on a Sunday. But now, you know, he's looking at your game and offering, you know,

advice if you ask for it. And it's invaluable. And it's, yeah, it's just very cool. But he's certainly capable of winning any tournament he plays in right now. Cool. Thank you, man. Absolutely. Really appreciate it.

My thanks to Jordan for that conversation and for bearing with my golf skills. God, I topped those first two. I wish I could have them back. Or maybe I should have just pulled out driver. He said I shouldn't. I don't know. Be sure to follow Jordan as he looks to defend. his title at the British Open, starting July 19th, on the Golf Channel.

And thanks again to all of you for checking us out to hear more of the full-length conversations with all my guests every week. Be sure to click subscribe so you never miss an episode. And don't forget to tune in to Sunday today every Sunday on NBC. I'm Willie Geist. Thanks for listening to the Sunday Sit Down podcast.