Most top-name professional golfers don't fly on commercial jets these days. They have plenty of money to fly private, either as a group or individually. Some even own their own plane.
However, that doesn't mean the biggest names in golf don't sometimes find themselves on a plane just like normal people would travel by air. Jordan Spieth was pressed on Thursday at the Sony Open in Hawaii to remember the last time he not just flew commercial but when he last flew in coach. He struggled to come up with the exact date for a minute, and then it came to him -- primarily because it happened as a result of how he played at Waialae Country Club.
"I flew back from Hawaii when I missed the cut in 2019," he explained. "My flight was set for Sunday and I didn't want to wait and there was a seat that was available."
The three-time major winner was in the thick of his deepest struggles as a professional and clearly wanted to get out of Dodge and back to the mainland. As you can imagine, he was in a pretty dour mood.
"I was pissed because I was playing really bad," he said. "Didn't know how to solve it and just missed the cut. I didn't care where I was. I just felt bad for the people around me."
Spieth is an emotional player, and he's a talker whether things are going well or poorly. While those passengers sitting next to him on that flight out of Honolulu were getting a unique experience, Spieth's caddie, Michael Greller, gets the full Spieth Experience every week.
"I think [our conversation] just depends on if it's not going well off execution or like I played really dumb shots or made really bad decisions," he said. "I made a lot of really bad decisions last Saturday [at the Sentry Tournament of Champions]. It was probably the worst mentally-played round I can remember having in a long time. Meaning I was hitting holds [against the wind] when I should have rode it or I was hitting a club that wasn't going to get there, but long was better than short."
Spieth admits he's pretty hard on himself on the course and probably doesn't need to do that.
"Just stuff like that where I'm like, man, I'm just trying to be perfect and I don't need to be," he said. "It's more I'm just blabbering to Michael more than anything else, you know what I mean? Like keep an eye on if I'm trying to get a stroke back here; I don't need to push this up -- or something like that. Stuff I should know that sometimes I need a reminder because you I get a little too aggressive."
