It didn’t take Jordan Spieth very long to figure out the PNC Championship is different than most other tournaments. He happened to be in the locker room at Ritz-Carlton Golf Club early Thursday when he ran into this week’s oldest and youngest competitors in the team event. In one area stood Gary Player. Nearby was young Will McGee, son of LPGA great Annika Sorenstam.

Seventy-six years separate the two.

“That was new for me,” Spieth said, smiling. He is making his PNC debut alongside his father, Shawn. “There’s a dispersion on the PGA TOUR, but it’s like 20 to 50 … not 11 to 87. So that was cool to see.”

There are lots of cool things going on in Spieth’s life these days. Thursday delivered an announcement he would be an investor and strategic partner with Invited (formerly ClubCorp). Sammy Spieth, Jordan and Annie Spieth’s first child, just turned 1, and Jordan is enjoying all the marvels of fatherhood. At the PNC, he and his dad, the man who introduced him to golf, will enjoy a festive “boys’ week.” Two other members of the Spieth family – Shawn’s younger brother, Stow, and Jordan’s younger brother, Steven – will be on their bags.

“The worst part,” Jordan said, assessing his father’s sporadic game, “is when he wants to hit a drive really far, which is most every drive.”

Best yet for Jordan, after a frustrating dip in form following his 2017 victory at The Open Championship – Spieth’s third major, captured before his 24th birthday – he is seeing some strong signs that his game continues to slowly build back toward the levels of greatness he achieved earlier in his 20s.

“There were times when I didn’t think I ever would (turn it around),” Spieth, a former world No. 1, said in a quieter moment outside the locker room after lightning storms and heavy rains ended pro-am play for the day.

“Doubts are a dagger of a feeling in professional sports, and I had plenty of it. So, in that sense, when I look back, I’m really excited. At the same time, I know where my ceiling is, and it still stinks not being at my ceiling.”

After enduring 82 starts between his 2017 Open Championship triumph and winning again at the Valero Texas Open last year (he would add the RBC Heritage earlier this year), Spieth, having climbed back to 14th in the world after falling below 80th, seems to have solid momentum.

After three seasons at 135th or worse in Strokes Gained: Off The Tee, Spieth ranked 38th in the category last season. At the Presidents Cup in September, Spieth and old pal Justin Thomas went 4-0 in team play. Spieth even added a victory in singles (over Australia’s Cameron Davis) that not only left him a perfect 5-0, but ended a mystifying stretch of singles play in the Presidents and Ryder Cups. He had been 0-6-1.

Spieth will turn 30 in July, and doesn’t discount that, as good as his golf was from 2015-17, his best stuff still could be ahead of him. Never before has he had a better understanding of his swing, and what makes his game go. Experience matters.

“To work toward that ceiling is the game of golf to all of us, right?” Spieth said. “I know where mine is, and unfortunately, it’s at a high enough place that it’s pretty hard to achieve. I believe I can be back there, and be back there at a more consistent level. That’s kind of the goal I’m at now. I still find myself just a little bit out of that trough; I’m not back to where I want to be, at the consistency that I want to be at. That’s kind of my driving force going forward.”

Three-time major champion Padraig Harrington, playing the PNC with his son, Paddy, is one of the game’s more astute observers. He has the opinion (with facts to back his thoughts) that many of the game’s greatest players enjoy only a brief burst of stellar play when they peak at the top level – Harrington himself won his three majors in a 13-month span in 2007-08. Many spend the bulk of their careers trying to rediscover levels during which they “played above themselves.”

Said Harrington, “You’re always comparing yourself to an unrealistic version of yourself – because you’ll always think you never missed a shot.”

That dynamic could change with players enjoying more success at younger ages, Spieth being one prime example. Spieth, he said, might have “a second go.” He is a player that Harrington says he keeps an eye on.

“What I do like with Jordan is he’s coming back,” Harrington said. “You know, that’s very unusual. Very unusual to have that peak and then to have another one. Jordan is coming back, which is quite impressive. It’s quite a testament to him.”

This week, the stress meter won’t be registering very high for Jordan Spieth. The PNC will be about getting his dad a taste of his week-to-week arena and having a few laughs with his uncle and his brother. Shawn Spieth, a former college baseball player at Lehigh, said he is here to win, so the dutiful son will do his best to put his father in a position to do that come Sunday afternoon.

“I should be good and consistent by now, right?” the dad said jokingly, turning to his son, who shot his father one of those teen looks that said, “Right, Dad.”

As good as Shawn’s short game may be, Jordan wouldn’t care to guess where his dad’s golf ceiling resides. These days, the son is too busy figuring out and striving to make a return to his own.