Jordan Spieth kept his hopes of completing a career Grand Slam at the PGA Championship alive after staging a clutch fightback to make the cut Friday at Oak Hill.
The 29-year-old American, nursing an injured left wrist, fired a two-over par 72 to make the cut on the number at five-over 145 after 36 holes, 10 off the lead.
“Missing the cut would be such a dagger because I could have just taken the week off,” Spieth said. “That’s where your brain goes.”
Three-time major winner Spieth, who skipped last week’s PGA Tour stop in his hometown of Dallas, tested his wrist two days before deciding on Wednesday to play.
Spieth says the wrist is “holding up nicely” even if his scoring isn’t.
“I turned under-par rounds into over par,” Spieth said. “My game feels actually in the spot it has been all spring. It just hasn’t turned into under-par rounds.
“Some of that has to do with probably not quite feeling as fresh and a little bit of course knowledge that I wish I had.”
Spieth stumbled to a bogey at 11, a double bogey at 12, and went out of bounds from a horrid lie in a greenside bunker to bogey 14 and put himself over the cut line.
“I had no other play on to the green anywhere,” Spieth said of the shot at 14. “I knew I could get out of the bunker. I was maybe trying to hit it a little far, but regardless, just to get it out onto the green would have required me hitting right into the lip and it just didn’t sound like a good idea at the time.
“I didn’t think I could possibly hit it over the green.”
Spieth sank a nine-foot birdie putt at the par-3 15th to get back on the cut line, made two routine pars then stared down a par putt from just inside eight feet on the 18th hole to determine if he would miss the cut at a PGA Championship for the first time since 2014.
The ball rolled in and Spieth rolled into the weekend.
“I’ve had putts to make cuts on the last hole that I’ve missed. I’ve had some I’ve made,” Spieth said. “That one was about as long and difficult a one and a situation — you feel the nerves almost like it’s a putt to win in a weird way.
“It’s nice to step up and make that, and hopefully leads to the ball going in quite a bit tomorrow.”
Spieth felt like he got away with robbery.
“There’s a lot I can take in positive to finishing that round,” he said. “I don’t ever want to feel like it’s a good thing to be around the cut line, though.
“I was out of it. Vegas would have had me favored to miss when I was about to play that shot on 14. I stole some shots at the end there.”
