Jordan Spieth aces from 199 yards on No. 16 at Valero Texas Open

Jordan Spieth started slow at the Valero Texas Open, but his day shifted with one shot – with a brand-new 7-iron.

Spieth made a hole-in-one at the 199-yard, par-3 16th hole at TPC San Antonio, his fourth career ace on TOUR. His tee shot landed on the left side on the hole’s donut-shaped green – playing to a back-left hole location – the ball landing some 30 feet short and bouncing a few times before rolling into the center of the cup. The Texan shared high-fives with playing partners Hideki Matsuyama and Lucas Glover and their caddies before acknowledging the raucous fans. He followed the ace with a birdie-par finish for a 1-over 73; he’ll enter Friday one off the projected cut line.

Had he not changed 7-irons on Wednesday, Spieth believes, he wouldn’t have made the ace.

“I had to take some off of a 7-iron and so I lined up to hit like a 185 shot and hit a little fade with the wind that kind of was able to ride the slope then. I hit it and I picked up the tee because I did what I wanted to do,” Spieth said afterward.

“It's actually a brand new 7-iron this week, only the 7-iron. I like hitting my 7-iron and so I've got it to where, when I'm testing my gaps, it like goes 5 yards too far in the gap. I didn't know why. On Wednesday after the pro-am I was hitting on the back of the range; I had them just bring a brand new 7-iron for new grooves and it was up in the right spin window, so knocked 4, 5 yards off of it. If I didn't change 7-irons yesterday, then I wouldn't have made it. It's funny.”

Spieth stood 4-over through 15 holes Thursday, a less-than-promising start in his home state. He carded four bogeys against two birdies on the front nine, turning in 2-over 38. He rebounded from a bogey at No. 11 with a birdie at No. 12, but he fell back with a double bogey at the par-5 14th when he went OB off the tee.

Then he made magic on TPC San Antonio’s famed 16th, his first TOUR ace since the third round of the 2021 Arnold Palmer Invitational presented by Mastercard (No. 2 at Arnold Palmer’s Bay Hill Club & Lodge), en route to a T4 finish.

Spieth had previously recorded holes-in-one at the 2013 Puerto Rico Open (finishing tied for second) and 2015 BMW Championship (T13). It’s a strong correlation of aces and high finishes – that he’ll look to continue this week.

“Seems like kind of like a bad blackjack run; you can't get up from the table, and maybe the hole-in-one turns it around a bit,” said Spieth, who missed the cut in his previous two starts, THE PLAYERS Championship and Valspar Championship.

“Like my game feels fine and I'm just not getting much out of it. So it's extremely frustrating because I drove the living piss out of the ball today and I picked the wrong line on 14 and it's the one drive I missed honestly like 5, 6 yards right of where I was looking and then I don't find it. I was like, ‘See, now my driving stats don't look the way they actually feel and I'm 4-over.’ I'm like, ‘This is not a hard track this afternoon, what in the world is going on?’

“I got a couple nice breaks late that maybe make me feel like the game's not as hard as it's been feeling.”