Jordan Spieth will have his high school golf teammate as caddie at Hero World Challenge
At the Hero World Challenge, Jordan Spieth will have a familiar face on the bag. His high school best friend and former teammate is expected to caddie for him during the weekend as Michael Greller, the usual caddie for Spieth, is away. Eric, Spieth's longtime friend, will step in.
The PGA Tour shared a clip of the two taking some practice swings, and they both appear to be having a good time. Having the right caddie can make a huge difference, like it did for Max Homa when his caddie advised him to take a drop on a shot and nail the next one - which he improbably did.
Someone who has a strong relationship with the golfer can certainly be good, and that's the hope for Spieth this weekend. There's a stacked field, and Spieth has pretty decent odds of winning it, per CBS Sports:
- Viktor Hovland +400
- Scottie Scheffler +450
- Collin Morikawa +800
- Max Homa +800
- Matt Fitzpatrick +1600
- Justin Thomas +1600
- Cameron Young +1600
- Sam Burns +2000
- Jordan Spieth +2000
- Rickie Fowler +2200
- Tony Finau +2200
- Wyndham Clark +2200
- Brian Harman +3000
- Will Zalatoris +3300
- Keegan Bradley +3500
- Jason Day +3500
- Sepp Straka +3500
- Justin Rose +3500
- Lucas Glover +5500
- Tiger Woods +8000
This is also the weekend that Tiger Woods is making his return to golf. He's committed to being a semi-regular player in the coming months, but his swing at the Hero World Challenge will be the first since April after he had surgery.
Jordan Spieth doesn't like the PIP fund
Jordan Spieth earned $7.5 milion from the PGA Tour PIP fund (Player Impact Program), but he doesn't think it needs to be around. The golfer admitted that even those who benefit from it will benefit from it going away.
Per ESPN, the golfer believes that the intention in the PIP fund was noble, but that it might not have worked out. He said:
"I think that its goal was to help prevent players from accepting high-dollar Saudi offers, LIV offers. I think that's the goal. If you're going to see numbers that are thrown out at players now, a couple specific players, it doesn't really do that."
With LIV Golf offering players exorbitant sums to defect from the PGA Tour, the Tour felt it needed to reward players financially so that the best of them don't decide to leave.
Spieth added that he doesn't see it sticking around for very long:
"Find a way to spread those funds elsewhere to support, ideally, fields, purses, so that you still could benefit from them individually but finding the right sweet spot. And I'm not sure, I know it drops by half next year. I'm not sure what that will look like after that. Hopefully, it won't need to exist, I think is the best way to put it."
Spieth believes that will make everybody happy, including those that have benefited from it. It remains to be seen what the Tour's plans are in this regard.