Jordan Spieth was not having the best day during Thursday’s round of the U.S. Open, but he made matters worse — at least for fans — after being heard sniping at his caddy when two shots went horribly wrong.
On the par four, eighth hole, Spieth’s tee shot went wild and bounced off the fairway to the rocks below the green forcing him to take a drop-in ball, the New York Post reported.
That was not the end of the errors as his second swing overshot the green and ended up in the rough. TV mics then caught Spieth grumbling to himself, “Two perfect shots.”
But what Spieth said next brought criticism when he seemed to blame his caddy for the calamitous hole.
“Two perfect shots, Michael. You got me in the water on one and over the green on the other,” Spieth groused at caddie Michael Greller.
The golfer earned a bogey on the eighth, but he also bogeyed the ninth. He finished the day with a one over 72.
But it is clear Spieth also heard the critics slapping him for taking a shot at his caddie because after the round Spieth addressed his comments.
“Yeah, I may have looked like the bad guy there, but my intentions were that we should be in play if the ball is hit solidly, and I was out of play on both shots,” Spieth explained. “We were talking about potentially one less [club on the second shot], and I said, ‘But isn’t it playing about 60 [yards] with a fade?’ And then he said yes.”
But Spieth insisted that he was chiding “the team” not just his caddy.
“So, we both agreed on that,” Spieth continued. “It was clearly a 4-iron off the tee. At the same time, when you hit a couple of shots exactly where you want to, and the first one is in the water and the next one is dead over the green, I’m going to be frustrated that as a team we didn’t figure out how to make sure that didn’t happen.”
Spieth’s explanation did not assuage critics of his treatment of his cadd:ie
Follow Warner Todd Huston on Twitter @warnerthuston.