The Story of How Jordan Spieth’s Debut Coca-Cola Ad Almost Didn’t Happen

Golfer Jordan Spieth shows off his lighter side – and impressive trick-shot skills – in his first Coca-Cola ad debuting during his U.S. Open title defense.

In the 60-second spot, the 22-year-old champion is waiting inside his production trailer to shoot a commercial during a rain delay when he reaches into a cooler for a Coke, leaving behind a divot in the crushed ice that resembles a golf hole. The indented image sparks an idea; a shoeless Spieth quickly grabs a club and gets creative – chipping shots off the walls and into everything from a bell-shapedCoca-Cola glass, to the pit of an avocado, to an open toilet. Missy Elliott’s “The Rain (Supa Dupa Fly)”, fittingly, soundtracks the spot.

Making the Most of a Mulligan

Coca-Cola and Wieden+Kennedy Portland had to come up with a few tricks of their own to pull off the shoot at the TPC Four Seasons Las Colinas near Spieth’s hometown of Dallas. In fact, W+K had planned to film an entirely different commercial featuring Spieth and a friend playing golf on a hot summer day… but Mother Nature had other plans.

“We were scouting locations and doing pre-production in Dallas when the forecast took a turn for the worst and we realized we were in a flood zone,” said Sarah Traverso, group director of multimedia production and agency operations forCoca-Cola North America. “The sun was essentially the third character in our story, so we knew we couldn’t pull it off.”