Australian Open: Jordan Spieth endures a bad day with the putter

There are many ways to miss a mid-range birdie putt and Jordan Spieth found most of them.

Jordan Spieth reacts after another putt misses in his second round of 71 at The Australian Golf Club yesterday. Picture: AFP

There are many ways to miss a mid-range birdie putt and Jordan Spieth found most of them in a second round that left the defending champion and world No 2 treading water at the Australian Open yesterday.

The trend began early when his first putt (on the 10th green) glided towards the hole and then stuck stubbornly to the lip of the cup.

From there he started to leave them short. A birdie chance became par on the 11th, an eagle chance became his only outward birdie at the par-5 14th.

From tee to green Spieth was his usual tidy self but on the putting surface things were messy. He missed them left, he missed them right. His usually reliable radar was scrambled.

It was maddening to watch, knowing how brilliantly Spieth has putted for most of his career, but he maintained his habitual composure throughout and finally found what he was searching for on his final hole (the 9th), sinking a three-metre attempt to register a birdie that got him back under par.

Spieth had set out with the intention of making the most of the easier early-morning conditions and charging up the leaderboard but the missed putts stopped him dead.

He finished his round exactly where he started, at one-under the card after a level-par round of 71.

It would be enough to scramble most players’ brains but Spieth is as clearheaded as any who have ever graced the greens and he had rationalised it and put it behind him by the time he’d finished signing his card.

“It just was a bad day with the flat stick, it happens,’’ Spieth said.

“I told Cameron (his coach Cameron McCormick, who is also acting as his caddie this week) early in the round, if I hit one, they’ll all start going. It just unfortunately took me 17 holes to make one.’’

By his elevated standard, Spieth’s putting has not been up to scratch this year (he’s fallen from second to 42nd in the US PGA statistics) and he has worked particularly on the skill during his recent six-week break from tournament play.

“It’s a bit disappointing because that’s mainly what I’ve been spending my time on, but I started to gather a nice comfort level towards the end of the round and really put some nice strokes on it on the back nine,’’ he said.

“Even putts that didn’t go in were just misread, once I started to really get assertive. I was a little tentative to start, the greens were slower than I thought I could do on them and I left everything just a foot or so short.

“If I’d made one of those earlier, it could have been a completely different story today. I’m going to look to make a putt early in the round tomorrow and maybe jumpstart a weekend like two years ago or three years ago.’’

Spieth won the last Open held on this course, in 2014, courtesy of an extraordinary final round of 63, facing down the bared teeth of a Sydney southerly. It bears remembering that he was only three-under after two rounds then, but ended up winning the tournament by six strokes at 13-under.

So despite the fact that he’s a fair distance back on the leaderboard with two rounds to play, he doesn’t think he’s out of it, not by a long putt.

“I feel like you can make up more ground and come from behind here over any tournament I’ve played this entire year — just given the golf course will start to bake out and you get really calm conditions in the morning that leave the windier conditions for the afternoon.

“So I’ll have a pretty gettable golf course I imagine in the morning tomorrow with the (leading) guys really having to watch themselves in the afternoon. If I can post something like five, six-under, then I’m very much in this tournament.’’

It was left to his playing partners, US Tour winner Cameron Smith and 2015 Australian Open champion Matt Jones to assert themselves yesterday.

Both moved into the top 10 at four-under courtesy of some good ball-striking and are well in contention for the weekend.

Smith overcame an early setback when he lost two strokes with a double bogey on the 1st hole after he overshot the green, then hit a tree and missed a short putt.

But that seemed to focus his mind and he responded with four birdies in the next eight holes to recoup his losses and forge ahead, eventually carding a two-under 69.

Jones had a particularly good round going until he three-putted on the final green, scoring six birdies in his four-under 67.

Jones would dearly love to win a second national title at his home club and believes his form is good enough and his local knowledge will give him an edge if the wind blows hard on Sunday.

“At this course you have to be sitting in the right spot and knowing the course as well as I do will give me a bit of an advantage,’’ Jones said.

But he’s wary of what Spieth might do with the benefit of an earlier tee time today.

“He hits it great and he putts great,’’ he said.

“He’s going to tee off before any wind tomorrow, so he can go out and shoot six-under easily and then he’ll be right in there.’’