ended last week<\/a> after finishing outside the top 50 in the PGA Tour\u2019s season-long FedEx Cup standings. After undergoing wrist surgery last summer, Speith returned in late January and posted four top 10s in 19 starts.\u00a0<\/p>\nSI Golf Newsletters. Sports Illustrated\u2019s Free Golf Newsletters. dark. Sign Up Now<\/p>\n
The three-time major champion was once heralded as the next Tiger Woods, but has only two victories since 2017, and none since the \u201822 RBC Heritage.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Player, meanwhile, still believes Spieth, 32, is one of the game\u2019s best talents, but can pinpoint where things are going wrong.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cJordan Spieth, I think, is the best golfer in the world, but in my opinion, he was taught the wrong thing. He was taught the wrong thing. And he just went downhill,\u201d Player said in a video The Golf Supply YouTube channel posted this week. \u201cIf you had a man like Ben Hogan teaching Jordan Spieth, he would be the best in the world. He\u2019s such a competitor, such a wonderful man. A wonderful guy for golf, the best short game, oh man, best course management, but, man, he just can\u2019t hit the ball, ya know?\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThat is a tragedy.\u201d<\/p>\n
And the South African attributes Spieth\u2019s subpar performances to American coaching.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cYou know, there\u2019s a tremendous lack of knowledge with golf,\u201d Player said. \u201cI would say in America today, the golf pros that are teaching know less about golf. They\u2019re way less\u2014and they got all the equipment, the technology.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cBut I see them teaching golfers\u2014they\u2019re teaching golfers to do this [bowed wrist] at the top.\u201d<\/p>\n
Spieth wasn\u2019t the only one subject to Player\u2019s criticism, though. <\/p>\n
\u201cWhen\u2019s the last you heard of Dustin Johnson?\u201d he asked.\u00a0<\/p>\n
But despite a lackluster few years, Speith, ranked 51st in the world, feels his game is trending upward.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cNext year\u2019s going to be a really good year for me, I can feel it,\u201d Spieth two weeks ago at the Wyndham Championship. \u201cIt\u2019s all coming along. I\u2019ll be healthy, and just structurally putting, the mechanics are all getting really, really close. One good offseason should get me nailed down to where I could be as good as I\u2019ve been. That\u2019s my goal.\u201d<\/p>\n
More on Sports Illustrated<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Gary Player is one of the greatest golfers ever, and at 89 years old, he\u2019s doesn’t mince his…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":72564,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[566],"tags":[64,63,755,85],"class_list":["post-72563","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-golf","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-golf","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72563","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=72563"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72563\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/72564"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=72563"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=72563"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=72563"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}