Jordan Spieth Opens With 1-Under 69 in Career Grand Slam Pursuit at Aronimink

Just over a year ago, Rory McIlroy completed a career grand slam with his victory in the 2025 Masters, becoming just the sixth player in men’s golf history to accomplish the feat.

The last to do it before McIlroy was Tiger Woods a quarter-century earlier, when he captured the 2000 Open Championship at St. Andrews.

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If it’s up to Jordan Spieth, the seventh career grand slam winner will be crowned just 13 months after the last.

The 32-year-old Texan needs the Wanamaker Trophy to complete his career slam and he got off to a strong start toward that end in the first round of the 108th PGA Championship at Aronimink on Thursday with a 1-under 69. But he might be wondering what could have been after bogeys on two of his last three holes, leaving him two shots off the early clubhouse lead held by Aldrich Potgieter, Stephan Jaeger, Min Woo Lee and Ryo Hisatsune.

“I struck the ball well,” Spieth said. “I drove it really well. I was in a good position on a lot of holes. If I drive it like that, I'd expect to shoot what I did or better. Just didn't quite finish the way I wanted to the last three holes, but under-par was a good score. It was blowing really hard, and it was cold this morning. The course played very, very difficult. It was a good start. I'm going to need to improve on it, I think, each day.”

Starting on the back side, Spieth was bogey-free over his opening nine. His first birdie of the day was on the 551-yard 16th hole where he got up and down from a greenside bunker. With pars on 17 and 18, he made the turn in 1-under 34.

On the first hole, Spieth sent an approach from the middle of the fairway just below the hole and rolled in a 10-footer for birdie, though he would give it right back with a bogey on No. 2. He found the right rough with his tee shot and his approach finished on the left side of the green where he would 3-putt from just under 40 feet.

Following pars on Nos. 3 and 4, Spieth collected back-to-back birdies on the fifth and sixth to get to 3 under and in a share of the lead. A high, towering tee shot on the 178-yard, par-3 fifth hit the brakes just 3 feet from the hole, which he knocked in. At No. 6, he launched a wedge past the hole from about 90 yards and sucked it back to six feet and made the putt.

Spieth missed the mark with his approach from the fairway at No. 7 and would 3-putt from 75 feet for bogey.

Spieth has never led or co-led after any round of a PGA Championship (47 rounds total) and hasn’t led at the end of a major championship round (shared or outright) since Round 3 of the 2018 Open Championship. He’s been trying to complete the career grand slam since 2017 and his best finish over that time was a T3 in 2019 at Bethpage Black.

“It's one of those rounds where I feel like I played better than I scored, which is frustrating because you want to get the most out of your round,” Spieth said. “It's also a good thing, which means things are in a good spot. I'll go try to tighten a couple things up that got off at the end of the day and just go out there tomorrow and try to make a few more putts.”