Jordan Spieth is far from out of contention heading into the final round of the Valspar Championship, with the three-time major champion four shots off the lead after such an intriguing day at Innisbrook.
Both Jordan Spieth and Justin Thomas were out early on Saturday having just made the cut at the Valspar Championship. With that, you would have been forgiven for thinking that both men had too much to do to put themselves in the mix.
But Spieth and Thomas made the most of the conditions. Thomas posted the lowest round of the day, while Spieth was only a couple of shots behind to leave himself tied for 17th with one round to go.
The 31-year-old made seven birdies, but two bogeys on the par threes cost him. Nevertheless, it appears that Spieth is very content with the state of the large majority of his game.
Jordan Spieth suggests two parts of his game have prevented him from leading the Valspar Championship
It has been a turbulent start to the year for Spieth. And following his third round, he explained that he is pleased with how his game is coming together.
He did however, admit to a couple of frustrations – noting that he was going to work on one issue in particular after his round.
“Yeah, it was good. I got off to the start that you want to get off to on a Saturday and then I just feel like I turned a seven under round into four under. Yesterday I felt like I turned six under round into two under. Just scoring, putting inside 10 feet’s killed me this week. So I’m going to go work on that right now,” he said.
“You miss a couple that might be good putts that are misread, and then I start making some poor strokes. In general everything’s fine with it. You get around the hole here and they get pretty tricky. I felt like I missed a couple early and then it started to look smaller. So yeah, just, I mean, other than chipping and inside 10 feet putting I’m leading this golf tournament. So I feel pretty good about my game as a whole, because those two just require a time to fix them and can get pretty streaky in a good way.”
The area where Jordan Spieth was the best player in the field in round three of the Valspar Championship
There was one area where Spieth was indeed the best player in the field on Saturday in Florida.
Spieth has been erratic since his return to the PGA Tour in 2025. He was one of the stories of the tournament at the WM Phoenix Open, with fans delighted to see Spieth in contention at TPC Scottsdale.
However, he finished 59th at the Players Championship last week, as well as tied 69th at the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am and a missed cut at the Genesis Invitational. So it is still difficult to know just where Spieth’s game is right now.
But with the Masters just around the corner, Spieth will take great encouragement from the fact that he was first for strokes gained approaching the greens on Saturday at Innisbrook, according to the PGA Tour website.
He is certainly a dangerous man around Augusta National if everything clicks at the right time.
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