Jordan Spieth admits he’s been ‘surprised’ by what has happened to him ever since Rory McIlroy won The Masters

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Jordan Spieth has the opportunity to achieve golfing immortality this week at The PGA Championship.

Spieth heads into the week at Quail Hollow with only The PGA Championship currently separating him from joining the exclusive Grand Slam club.

It has been suggested that the weather in Charlotte for The PGA Championship will do Spieth no favours at all.

After the deluge of rain that has hit Quail Hollow, the golf course will be playing even longer than it already is.

Rory McIlroy has already explained how Spieth’s task of winning the Grand Slam is more difficult than the one he faced.

And The Masters champion is correct. The PGA changes venues every single year, so Spieth will not be as acclimatised to the courses as McIlroy was to Augusta National.

Jordan Spieth has been ‘surprised’ by what has happened since Rory McIlroy won The Masters

McIlroy is now part of the Grand Slam club, alongside Gene Sarazen, Ben Hogan, Jack Nicklaus, Gary Player, and Tiger Woods.

So can Spieth increase the size of the club to seven come Sunday evening?

The outlook seems to be pretty bleak. The three-time major champion has been in poor form for a while now.

But he does have the talent and ability needed to turn all of that around this week at Quail Hollow.

Spieth was asked if he has found himself thinking about winning the Grand Slam more recently.

He said, “I don’t think so. It’s been more — I’ve been surprised at — there’s been a number of years I’ve come to the PGA, and no one’s really asked me about it. There’s been some years where it was a story line, I guess.

“It’s funny, I think, if Rory didn’t, then it wouldn’t have been a story line for me here necessarily. I mean, it’s always a story line if I work my way in, but at least ahead of time, I just feel like I’ve been asked about it more than other years, including years where I’ve come in — I want to say ’22 I came in after winning and finishing second back-to-back, which I would have thought would be a time where that would have been one.

“So I’ve kind of been surprised by the dynamic a little bit. But it’s always circled on the calendar. For me, if I could only win one tournament for the rest of my life, I’d pick this one for that reason. Obviously watching Rory win after giving it a try for a number of years was inspiring.

“You could tell it was a harder win than — most of the time he makes it look a lot easier. So that obviously was on the forefront of his mind. Something like that has not been done by many people, and there’s a reason why. But I’d love to throw my hat in the ring and give it a chance come the weekend this week.“

The 31-year-old American then responded when it was put to him that he might have been insulted after not being asked as much about potentially winning the Grand Slam in the past.

“Not really, no, because the years I’m talking about, I wasn’t in — a lot of times, I wasn’t in very good form. If you’re not in very good form coming into a major — I mean, I had a chance in 2019, and I was not in form. I was in the final group on Saturday with Brooks, and I was like, I know what it’s like to have control of my game. I’ve played with Brooks with control of my game, and I see what he’s doing right now, and I don’t have mine. Let’s see if I can fake it these next two days.

“I feel a lot better now than, say, I did in that, but it’s very — I’m not insulted by it. Typically there’s a lot of story lines. I feel like for so many years watching Phil’s at the U.S. Open, there was some, then it wasn’t some, and then he wins the PGA recently, and all of a sudden it becomes a story line in the U.S. Open. It just kind of bounces back and forth within the noise, I guess.“

Spieth’s 2025 PGA Tour stats

It is worth remembering that Spieth only returned to action from wrist surgery a few months ago.

So it’s understandable as to why he might have been slightly off his game.

Here’s how his stats look for the 2025 season:

Those numbers are by no means bad, but they’re just not quite good enough for us to be talking about him as a genuine contender at Quail Hollow.

If Spieth ends up winning The PGA Championship, it would be a huge surprise, there is no doubt about that.