Spieth’s support system has kept him balanced. His family has been his pressure relief valve. When Spieth missed the cut in Houston, he was greeted by his sister, who has special needs. She hugged him and told him, “I love you, Jordan.” Meanwhile, after finishing second in The Masters, Greller joked that his nephew told him, “You did a bad job of caddying.”
“Jordan has an unbelievable ability to block out the external on the golf course and to normalize life off the course,” Greller says. “When we were at The Masters this year, it was not that much different for him than it was at the U.S. Amateur in terms of our conversations. You wouldn’t have noticed that much of a difference. At that level, if you can block things out and normalize things and just trust your talents and your instincts, then you have a huge advantage on the field.”
Spieth is so cool and composed that Greller admits Spieth sometimes relaxes him more than he relaxes Spieth. Just as in sixth grade, sometimes the student teaches the teacher.
The day before our interview, Greller played a match with his pals at Gold Mountain. He had a six-foot putt to win and said, “I was more nervous standing over that than I am caddying. I have so much faith in Jordan’s abilities and talents. I feel like he draws confidence in my being positive with him and being the voice of reason when he wants to be aggressive. I think I balance him, but I also think I’m able to draw a lot of confidence just from him.
“Don’t get me wrong, Jordan has nerves,” he adds. “But he’s able to channel his nerves into good energy on the golf course. He has said to me before, ‘I wish the cameras would show up so I could start playing better.’
“He cherishes playing in front of an audience,” Greller continues. “It gets him more focused.”
And Spieth has an uncanny ability to adapt to various courses, from Kampala to East Lake, Augusta to Sawgrass.
“The bigger the stage, the more he embraces it,” Greller says. “Jordan is definitely a perfectionist and he’s very honest in his analysis of himself and the people who work for him. He lets me know what I need to improve upon and I really value that. He sets the bar extremely high.”
For instance, Greller believes he has to do a better job of caddying in the rain. And he needs to get even better at being the voice of reason, the voice that Spieth doesn’t have in his own head. When, say, Spieth wants to go for the green on a par-5, where there is more risk than reward, Greller has to calmly talk him into taking a five-iron and laying up, erring sometimes on the side of caution.