Spieth's Attitude

[Sun Devil]

I noticed at the SHO where upon missing a putt Spieth berates his caddie with something along the lines of "I TOLD YOU IT DIDN'T BREAK TO THE RIGHT!".

I found this quite funny, since if Jordan actually believed the putt would break less why didn't he simply play the putt that way?

It's very easy to blame others for your shortcomings, and I am starting to see some of that in Spieth. I have a feeling that this player-caddie relationship wont last forever. I could be wrong though, since Bubba still has the same guy on the bag, and he's about 10x worse than Spieth.

 

If I'm looping, my guy has never hit a bad shot. Anything less than perfect is an anomaly. I don't want even a HINT of doubt in my guy's thinking. He IS perfect and the bad bounces were the caddy's fault, the grounds keeper's fault, the weather's fault, etc. And the best caddies know and accept this.

 

This. Exactly this. I caddy for a buddy and vice versa when we are in big tournaments (US Open quali and similar) and one doesn't make the cut or isn't playing well at the time. It's well known that we do no wrong when playing and it's obviously something the guy carrying the bag and helping you out did. It makes you feel like you didn't do anything wrong, makes it easier to forget, and let's that bad shot not linger which is exactly what it's for.

 

Caddies don't get enough credit for having to be a psychologist for their players. Especially Bubba's.

[duffer987]

What I don't like about it is the sense of entitlement he shows. It seems like he feels the universe owes him a perfect shot every time.

 

Not sure if serious.

 

Not sure why you are not sure.

Yes, very serious.

The way he reacts when he hits a bad shot is exactly like that, like he has a right to hit only perfect shots and like some entity does not respect that right. He even gets his fits when he hits it on the green, hole high, but 40 feet right of a left hand hole location.

Please enlighten me how you would describe that in any other way than I did.

 

That's why he's Jordan Speith and you're on the internet complaining about him. It is no where close a sense of entitlement as it is a sense of expectations. He expects to hit shots great each time, anything less is unacceptable. Not because some entity doesn't respect that but because he failed his own expectations of the shot he wanted to hit.

 

Ad hominems do nothing to help a thread about professional athletes on an internet forum. No poster (well hopefully not) is saying they are a PGA tour player, in the same way no poster is saying they are Brahms over on ClassicComposersWRX.

 

Anyways, blame the television mics for picking it up, but on multiple occasions Spieth has complained about the course conditions resulting in his shots being less than optimal. IDK that I'd classify that as 'entitlement' as such, but he is definitely not in those instances berating himself for the 'poor' results of the shot.

[Roadking2003]

So you have never heard him shout "What?" or "How did that bounce that way?" or something similar?

 

Yes. Quite often. That's quite common among golfers and has nothing to do with entitlement.

 

I don't often do, but there are times when I feel like I want to pick a fight on the internet, especially, if it's getting personal, like you did.

 

Personal? Please explain.

 

Have you ever played with somebody who complains about the outcomes of his shots all the time and hits more than one or two or three shots per round which prompt him to do this? I have, and it is not fun.

 

Yes, I have. Me and almost everybody I play with. We frequently say things like "I can't believe that putt broke left. It had to go right". That's just golf chatter.

[Jay ZG]

LOL, Spieth has an attitude problem now?

 

What a ridiculous thread... GolfWRX is like a parody of itself sometimes.

[rgk5]

Oh Dear Lord, he's fine.....

 

 

LMAO, I'm not the only one with too much time on my hands, lol

 

Stay well my Friends :)

 

All the Best,

Richard

 

So true, Richard. When Woods did all that emotional stuff he was praised for being fiery and competitive. Spieth does it and he is a petulant child. No winner can be a winner around this place according to the guys who could not win a church raffle never mind the heat of closing a tournament at a high level.

[ratspros]

That's why he's Jordan Speith and you're on the internet complaining about him. It is no where close a sense of entitlement as it is a sense of expectations. He expects to hit shots great each time, anything less is unacceptable. Not because some entity doesn't respect that but because he failed his own expectations of the shot he wanted to hit.

 

Good post. There is nothing about Spieth's actions or words that would indicate he feels entitled. He complains about HIMSELF and his failure to hit the shot he wanted to hit. There is NO entitlement attitude at all.

 

So you have never heard him shout "What?" or "How did that bounce that way?" or something similar?

I don't often do, but there are times when I feel like I want to pick a fight on the internet, especially, if it's getting personal, like you did.

Has Spieth already reached the sort of worshipping like Tiger, where it is impossible to say anything negative about him without the fans coming out and insulting anybody who dares to say something even remotely critical?

You know absolutely nothing about me and about the standards I strive to achieve in my own job. But I have never been one who needed external motivation.

I totally understand putting oneself under the biggest pressure and not being satisfied with results, if they don't meet one's own expectations. But I firmly believe that very single one of the top players does that, perhaps with the exception of Rory. And still you don't see them act like Spieth that often. And that's the main point I have said over and over again.

I don't mind cursing, I don't mind club slamming, I don't mind the nonchalant toss of a 3 iron into the pond. As long as it is a singular reaction to a singular bad shot, and with singular I mean once per round, or even once per nine holes. That's something completely different than bitching over every shot which did not come out as desired for a whole round.

 

Oh, and if he has to complain about a dozen shots each round which did not turn out as expectated, perhaps it is time to cut down the expectations, perhaps he is not as good as he thinks.

Have you ever played with somebody who complains about the outcomes of his shots all the time and hits more than one or two or three shots per round which prompt him to do this? I have, and it is not fun. And when that happens I usually think "Get used to it, because that seems to be your normal quality of play."

 

I've heard him say those lines. The way I read those statements is his own frustration in himself not realizing, "heck yeah it makes sense it bounces that way".

 

My first post was not meant to be personal. Sorry if it came across that way but I see absolutely nothing wrong with the way Speith handles him self on the course. He is by no means above taking any criticism but I feel the line between just calling him a whinny snot if you like and calling him entitled is a bit much. Does he whine? He sure does. I just think it's because of his expectations on himself and not a feeling of entitlement. I mean every level I've played at golfers whine about a hard pan lie in a bunker, flier they didn't expect, etc. It's not entitlement to say "crap, I should've known better these conditions where different then what I first thought".

 

And show me a pro that is happy with every shot he hits in a round and isn't somewhat frustrated with 6-12 results a round and I'll show you a pro that doesn't win much.

[braincramp52]

This place is starting to remind me of some of the girls in my class in about 6th grade.

[DTXgolfer12]

Show me a golfer that hasn't gotten mad after a bad shot and i'll show you someone who either hasn't been playing long. Or someone who takes wayyyyy too many happy pills.

 

We have to realize that we are always so critical of pro athletes. If they're mad at themselves for their performance they "have a bad attitude and are cocky". If they don't show any emotion they're "boring and don't have any passion for the game". Usually neither is accurate.

[thug the bunny]

This place is starting to remind me of some of the girls in my class in about 6th grade.

 

nah, relax, there's some decent thoughts being posted...

[bscinstnct]

No matter who it is.

 

Bitching at the ball. Yapping to yourself.

 

Is annoying.

 

Spieth can be annoying.

 

Not the end of the world.

 

Bubba does the same.

 

And everybody loves him, right ?

 

; )

[FarleyGolf7]

As someone who has caddied for a mini-tour player and played the game at a very high level, I can relate to Jordan appearing to be more complainy. When you play the game at such a high level, and you start struggling, the not so great breaks get exaggerated in your mind and it's easy to get upset. When I'm striping out 66's I'm very quite and everything is hunky dory, but when my swing starts struggling and I'm lipping out putts shooting 77 it's very easy to be woe is me thinking I'm getting bad breaks, and noticing imperfections in the greens or whatever. And from a caddy perspective, most players complain a lot about breaks, they just don't have mics on them all the time like Spieth does now. Lastly PGA Tour courses are conditioned so beautifully, you get accustomed to not getting any too poor of lies, or missing putts due to spike marks or poorly cut cups. Just my two cents on the subject.

[Roadking2003]

This place is starting to remind me of some of the girls in my class in about 6th grade.

 

Tell us more about those girls... :taunt:

[norge5]

Good thing we only deal with golf. If we were going to delve into NFL, NBA, MLB, NHL... Bjorn Borg was stoic, John McEnroe was fiery. Both great players with different approaches. We can only choose which we like. Not how they should behave.

[braincramp52]

This place is starting to remind me of some of the girls in my class in about 6th grade.

 

Tell us more about those girls... :taunt:

 

That was a looooooooooooooooooong time ago.

[slimeone]

Jason Day's in his head.

[KnightPS]

LOL, Spieth has an attitude problem now?

 

What a ridiculous thread... GolfWRX is like a parody of itself sometimes.

 

The intent of my original post wasn't to declare that Spieth has an attitude problem, it was to ask if things are different this year than they were last year when it comes to his attitude. I think everyone agrees that the cooler headed you are throughout a round, the better. I jumped on as a fan when he holed the bunker shot at the 2013 John Deere classic and took his first victory in a playoff, and admittedly as he tore it up in 2015 was one of the people who felt he could do no wrong. The idea was to have a conversation about whether he is being harder on himself this year than in the past, and if I just hadn't noticed this was his normal.

[3jacker]

In today's society, a 22 year old is basically still a child.

At his worst he's not close to being the a****** TW was on his best behavior.

[Sean2]

LOL, Spieth has an attitude problem now?

 

What a ridiculous thread... GolfWRX is like a parody of itself sometimes.

 

A parody of society today. Between microagressions, safe spaces, the vitriolic condemnation of others simply because they do not happen to believe as "you" do, the rank judgementalism (as if those doing the judging are the personification of perfection), and it is no wonder this nation finds itself where it is today.

[Shilgy]

In today's society, a 22 year old is basically still a child.

At his worst he's not close to being the a****** TW was on his best behavior.

yep, we got 'em going both ways now. A few posts above someone declared Tiger was praised for the same behavior and now we have someone setting the record straight and calling Tiger an a******.

[DTXgolfer12]

LOL, Spieth has an attitude problem now?

 

What a ridiculous thread... GolfWRX is like a parody of itself sometimes.

 

A parody of society today. Between microagressions, safe spaces, the vitriolic condemnation of others simply because they do not happen to believe as "you" do, the rank judgementalism (as if those doing the judging are the personification of perfection), and it is no wonder this nation finds itself where it is today.

 

It's also the "King of the Hill" mentality. When the kid is an underdog everyone is rooting for him. But as soon as he gets to the top of the mountain people want to pull him back down.

[bladehunter]

We did good today no?

[gwlee7]

Bogey free 66s do wonders for the ol' attitude.

[thug the bunny]

Yup, he looked pretty calm out there today.

 

For those bemoaning the state of WRX/society as demonstrated by this thread, I don't see anything inherently wrong with folks talking about their perception of the demeanor of a public sports figure. It's what we do. This thread hasn't gotten out of hand, just a little snarky.

[MtlJeff]

LOL, Spieth has an attitude problem now?

 

What a ridiculous thread... GolfWRX is like a parody of itself sometimes.

 

A parody of society today. Between microagressions, safe spaces, the vitriolic condemnation of others simply because they do not happen to believe as "you" do, the rank judgementalism (as if those doing the judging are the personification of perfection), and it is no wonder this nation finds itself where it is today.

 

If you spend an hour on random internet sites and news aggregators that allow comments, you'll find this site to be probably in the top 0.000001% of all sites on the internet in terms of people's behavior towards each other

 

Ever read an opinion piece on politics? Even fairly mainstream ones, most of the comments sound like they've been written by the type of person you'd expect to see in a road rage incident, or the bad guy on a "criminal minds" episode. Heck forget politics, most Youtube videos are like that. Twitter is 90% trolling

 

I'm convinced the nicest 50% of people on the entire internet are all on this site

[thug the bunny]

LOL, Spieth has an attitude problem now?

 

What a ridiculous thread... GolfWRX is like a parody of itself sometimes.

 

A parody of society today. Between microagressions, safe spaces, the vitriolic condemnation of others simply because they do not happen to believe as "you" do, the rank judgementalism (as if those doing the judging are the personification of perfection), and it is no wonder this nation finds itself where it is today.

 

If you spend an hour on random internet sites and news aggregators that allow comments, you'll find this site to be probably in the top 0.000001% of all sites on the internet in terms of people's behavior towards each other

 

Ever read an opinion piece on politics? Even fairly mainstream ones, most of the comments sound like they've been written by the type of person you'd expect to see in a road rage incident, or the bad guy on a "criminal minds" episode. Heck forget politics, most Youtube videos are like that. Twitter is 90% trolling

 

I'm convinced the nicest 50% of people on the entire internet are all on this site

 

Hmmm, a new thread? Displaying other internet board train wrecks? I don't go on fishing or guitar forums anymore because of the carnage and neolithic behavior.

[duffer987]

LOL, Spieth has an attitude problem now?

 

What a ridiculous thread... GolfWRX is like a parody of itself sometimes.

 

A parody of society today. Between microagressions, safe spaces, the vitriolic condemnation of others simply because they do not happen to believe as "you" do, the rank judgementalism (as if those doing the judging are the personification of perfection), and it is no wonder this nation finds itself where it is today.

 

If you spend an hour on random internet sites and news aggregators that allow comments, you'll find this site to be probably in the top 0.000001% of all sites on the internet in terms of people's behavior towards each other

 

Ever read an opinion piece on politics? Even fairly mainstream ones, most of the comments sound like they've been written by the type of person you'd expect to see in a road rage incident, or the bad guy on a "criminal minds" episode. Heck forget politics, most Youtube videos are like that. Twitter is 90% trolling

 

I'm convinced the nicest 50% of people on the entire internet are all on this site

 

Someone should have asked TayTweets what 'she' thinks of Spieth.

[RBImGuy]

Over the last few tournaments I can't help but notice that Spieth has had a little bit of an attitude problem. We know he always talks to his ball a lot and the back and forth with his caddy has been featured on all the broadcasts, but is this a different issue? My questions is, has he always been this way? I have a few theories. One is that the he played so well last year that it didn't get a chance to show itself. Another is that I was giving him too much of a benefit of the doubt as the new young gun on the scene. He is under a tremendous amount of pressure to stay on top and regain the #1 ranking, maybe the pressure is getting to him.

 

For me I think it started when he threw his caddy under the bus earlier this year (I know they win together and lose together) and last weekend I felt he was constantly complaining about the bounces he got and the lies he was left with.

 

Am I crazy or does anyone else see this happening?

 

For the record, I am a huge fan, and the real thing happening could be that I simply holding Jordan to a higher than reasonable standard and expecting too much.

 

when he dont play well he is more vocal in Majors he grinds down.

[McCann1]

I noticed at the SHO where upon missing a putt Spieth berates his caddie with something along the lines of "I TOLD YOU IT DIDN'T BREAK TO THE RIGHT!".

I found this quite funny, since if Jordan actually believed the putt would break less why didn't he simply play the putt that way?

It's very easy to blame others for your shortcomings, and I am starting to see some of that in Spieth. I have a feeling that this player-caddie relationship wont last forever. I could be wrong though, since Bubba still has the same guy on the bag, and he's about 10x worse than Spieth.

 

If I'm looping, my guy has never hit a bad shot. Anything less than perfect is an anomaly. I don't want even a HINT of doubt in my guy's thinking. He IS perfect and the bad bounces were the caddy's fault, the grounds keeper's fault, the weather's fault, etc. And the best caddies know and accept this.

 

This. Exactly this. I caddy for a buddy and vice versa when we are in big tournaments (US Open quali and similar) and one doesn't make the cut or isn't playing well at the time. It's well known that we do no wrong when playing and it's obviously something the guy carrying the bag and helping you out did. It makes you feel like you didn't do anything wrong, makes it easier to forget, and let's that bad shot not linger which is exactly what it's for.

I second this. When I have friends caddy for me it's understood that I as a player, for the time we're playing, am perfect. I can do no wrong, I was not the reason for a missed putt or bad club/swing. It sounds stupid I know but that is the only way to keep your confidence up and not second guess everything. Caddies know this and most don't take it personally. If you haven't noticed, during the round many players on tour will blame anything they think caused a problem. But in post round interviews they are more honest and talk about what they did wrong. During the round is not the time to start blaming yourself for bad putts/swings/club selections

[Forged4ever]

Oh Dear Lord, he's fine.....

 

 

LMAO, I'm not the only one with too much time on my hands, lol

 

Stay well my Friends :)

 

All the Best,

Richard

 

So true, Richard. When Woods did all that emotional stuff he was praised for being fiery and competitive. Spieth does it and he is a petulant child. No winner can be a winner around this place according to the guys who could not win a church raffle never mind the heat of closing a tournament at a high level.

I've loved the kid since Nathan Smith came back from that Walker Cup after Playing with him, rooming with him and being his mentor and Nathan has Played against and with the finest Ams on the face of this earth and he said that Jordan was the best of the lot of any that he'd Played with or against.

 

I said this way back when I first came on the board and guys laughed and I guess out of respect for me didn't call me an outright idiot however it was obvious that their thoughts on what makes a Champion were different than mine, lmao-

 

I said it then and I'll say it again-

 

The Boy's a Champion and last year wasn't a fluke, luck or anything but Jordan scratching the surface-

 

Provided he has good health, I believe that he'll get 6-8 majors though it wouldn't surprise me if he tops 8-

 

Seriously, come Sunday, there's less than a handful of bois that can Even know what if feels like to finish off a Major-

 

This kid is special and regarding his attitude, I love it too-

 

Sure he'll grow and mature as a Player and Man, however he's fine, lol

 

Thanks for the response :)

 

All the Best,

Richard

[ForeRightandLeft]

Spieth is the luckiest golfer I'ver ever seen. I thought he was early/late but he's really early/mid. I get that he's the golden boy but he's always on the right side of the draw and that's incredibly unfair. He should have been late/early or early/late. It's absurd.