PGA Championship 2026: Jordan Spieth compares his golf swing to smoking chicken in the most Jordan Spieth soundbite of the week

The Jordan Spieth experience can be a frustrating one … even for Jordan Spieth. The three-time major winner hasn’t won on the PGA Tour since 2022. This week at Aronimink Golf Club, his quest for the career grand slam will turn nine. He’s flashed at times this season, occasionally looking like his old self before ejecting in spectacular fashion.

His two T-11s and two T-12s in 2026 paint the picture of a golfer knocking at a door he’s not quite ready to step through, but as far as analogies go, Spieth had a better one on Tuesday, comparing the current state of his swing to smoking a chicken. Yes, a chicken.

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“I was smoking chicken in the fall or something like that on a big smoker I have,” Spieth told reporters at the site of the 2026 PGA Championship. “It got up to 155 [degrees] quickly, but then it takes awhile for the last [few degrees]. I was working on stuff, and I was like 'this kind of feels like what I’m trying to do in the swing.' I go play, and it’s just out of the barriers that we call sustainable … I don’t know if it’s that way for everybody, but it just kind of seems that way for me right now. It’s there, it’s close, it’s matching what I want to do. It feels good and it’s producing the right stuff, it’s just not quite consistent enough to be contending week-in, week-out.”

As we all know, rare beef is totally fine, but rare chicken … not so much. As Spieth explains, his game is still a little undercooked at the moment, but if it goes back in the smoker for a bit longer, it could still come out perfect. Spieth-iacs will hope the thermometer pops in time for the last few majors of the season, but if it’s tough to tell with chicken, it’s even harder to predict with golf.

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