Jordan Spieth Reinjured His Wrist But Has ‘No Reservations’ at Hero World Challenge

The Texan reaggravated an injury while home in the kitchen one week after the Ryder Cup.

Just a week after returning from the Ryder Cup in Rome, Jordan Spieth reaggravated the same left wrist injury that forced him to withdraw from a PGA Tour event in May and play with caution for nearly two months in the spring. 

But apparently after several tests, two weeks off and a new understanding of the source of the injury, Spieth is feeling healthy and ready to compete again. 

Speaking from the Hero World Challenge in the Bahamas, Spieth shared that he’s back to a full practice regimen. But he admitted he was caught off guard when he reinjured himself at home: The incident happened in his own kitchen.

Spieth reinjured his wrist after the Ryder Cup, but has since gotten back on track.  :: David Cannon/Getty Images

“I was very shocked when I reinjured it,” Spieth said. “I was reaching for a toaster to make my son breakfast and I was just supporting it on the shelf.”

“I was out for another couple weeks,” Spieth continued. “I finally got to the bottom of everything, so I've had really good physical therapists and had to add that into my routine in the last couple months, and will continue to. But essentially got to the bottom of it and was able to get in some really good work.”

After the toaster incident, Spieth was able to figure out that his pain didn’t stem from an acute injury, which his team originally suspected in May. This time around, doctors apparently discovered issues relating to Spieth’s ulnar nerve, a nerve that controls much of the movement in the forearm, hand and fingers. 

“It didn't make a whole lot of sense off the MRIs, and so then just did a bunch of tests and some work,” Spieth said. “Turns out it was my ulnar nerve, which is not anything to mess with, so I've been trying to take it very, very carefully.”

Despite the off-season scare, Spieth is confident in his ability to compete to his full ability this week at the Hero World Challenge in the Bahamas. The injury will simply require reserving more time for treatment and being more in tune than ever with his body. 

“I've been at full practice for weeks now and here or there when I feel like it gets close to being overdone, gym, practice, combination of a day, then I stay off of it,” Spieth said. “But I have no reservations on my abilities to just do what I need to do going forward given the progress that's been made over the last month and a half.”

In fact, Spieth also alluded to the fact that his new diagnosis and attention to his wrist has helped him achieve swing positions that hasn’t been able to reach in several years. 

“I don’t think I realized how limited or unable I was to hold certain forearm and wrist positions for a while when I originally injured it in 2018 until recently when I've been on top it, and have actually started to for the first time in a long time match swings that—or at least positions that I'm trying to hit and how they feel to me and what they produce when I start to do them over and over again," he said.

“Is that fully there this week? No. Is it very, very close? Am I doing it on the majority of swings? Yes. And it's extremely exciting and it makes me think, you know, staying on top of this I can get to structurally doing what I need to be doing to be at my best.”