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PGA CHAMPIONSHIPAugust 15, 2015Jordan SpiethKohler, Wisconsin, USA JOHN DEVER: Good afternoon, everybody. Welcome back to the 97th PGA Championship at Whistling Straits. Thank you to Jordan Spieth for spending some time with us here today. A 65 today, bogeyless, you're 13 under par. Looked like you really turned it on on the back nine, especially you scored there compared to Thursday and Friday. Was the difference the conditions or your play? JORDAN SPIETH: Yesterday morning the conditions were pretty easy on that nine. But I found a lot more fairways today. I was able to be more aggressive out of the fairways. Find wedge distances, even though I hit a few that were weak, but I hit a few that were really good. And I was able to capitalize. Michael did a great job keeping me in it. I was impatient on the front nine. I felt like I was playing some solid golf and I was 1-under through 10. I just wasn't scoring. My score did not reflect the way that I was playing, which has been a little bit of the story this week, minus two stretches of nine holes. And so once the one on 11 went, even though it was a simple up and down, I at least saw another birdie go. The one on 12 was nice. And we're off to the races. The holes started to look bigger. A lot of times it just takes one to go for me to really find that extra confidence, that extra little pop in my stroke. And on the back nine it was nice to get in the zone. The holes that I didn't birdie, 10 just barely missed, on the back nine, 14 was short in the heart. And then 15 was a great two-putt. So, yeah, very, very pleased to have a chance to win another major. JOHN DEVER: 33 holes without a bogey, you scrambled fantastic all week. 13 out of 14. Is that something you take pride in? Do you notice you're doing that or does it just happen? JORDAN SPIETH: Well, that scrambling stat doesn't exactly reflect my scrambling, because I've had quite a few holes that were either reachable par 5s or almost drivable par-4s, where I didn't get up and down quite a few times. I've been chipping and putting nicely. Been able to chip the ball close to the hole, not have to work too much on those par-saving putts, they haven't been from very long distances. But I did go through a couple of stretches where I had drivable holes or reachable par 5s where I went over par on them. Not only did I not get up and down, I didn't get up and down the second time. All in all, it's been really two fantastic nine holes in my mind. And tomorrow, if I can limit the mistakes and hit the fairways like we did it today, we'll be in really good shape. Q. You must have been four, maybe five shots behind at one point on the back nine, did you see any boards? I was curious if you had a number in mind of how close you wanted to be to the lead to give yourself a reasonable chance tomorrow? JORDAN SPIETH: I told Michael somewhere on the back nine, I think it was at the turn. 8 and 9 were great saves. And I remember telling Michael we've got birdie opportunities on this side, let's try to get to three to get to 10-under. I thought the lead would be somewhere around 13. And so that was my goal. I knew that we could. When I missed the putt on 10, I knew that we had two par 5s left and if I made a putt then we could maybe get three. But it was No. 15 where I saw -- I really didn't look at the boards much. I saw it on 15 and saw that the guys were still under par on the day, and I think by that time they were at 12 or 13. And at that point I was at 10. When that happened, when that moment happened, we were walking to 16 tee, we said let's get one birdie on the next three holes, play it smart, hit the green three times, and then we'll be in good position. Then I got to the board on 18. As I read my hole from behind the hole, I didn't really plan on looking at it, but it was right in the through and I saw Jason was at 16 under. And I said you've got to be kidding me. When is he going to slow down. I saw that he was 16 under with four holes to go, thinking he could get to 17 pretty easily. I need to make this to have a chance within four of the lead. And then I think he's dropped a couple of shots since then. I saw in the booth or in the scorer's tent. But I did all I could do to finish the round off. Q. (Inaudible.) JORDAN SPIETH: 17, I hit a 4-iron, 210 yards into the wind, a good, solid 4-iron. 18, I hit driver, 6-iron. Q. What got into you on the drive on 11? And then secondly, 18, you've played remarkably well this week, what do you attribute that to? JORDAN SPIETH: On 11, I was pissed, so I swung really hard (laughter). I lined up over that bunker and said let's try to kill this. If it's straight, great, if it has a draw, great. I saw it take a big bounce after it landed. That one is a stroke difference if you hit the fairway in my mind. It actually ended up in a pretty tough spot, a pretty steep downslope, downwind. That hole, if you miss it in the rough can really, really bring in -- can bring a bogey on a reachable par 5. I was just pleased it hit the fairway, but I was upset. 18, I don't know, it's a really hard hole. I played it well today. Other than that I've played it pretty average. I just got a nice, fortunate break of holing a bunker shot. My score shows 2-under, but I was really in trouble yesterday and stole a couple shots out of that one swing. But it's nice to have some good vibes on that hole, and to see the ball go in. And hopefully tomorrow I can have a chance like today to hit a nice shot in there and have a putt that matters. Q. Do you feel like the patience that you showed today when the putts weren't falling was something you had learned from Thursday? You talked about your impatience finally got the best of you, and you made that bogey on Thursday. But it just seemed like you got mad after that putt on 10 didn't fall and got going? JORDAN SPIETH: I think it's something that me and Michael, we both learned from past Major Championship weekends. I wasn't thinking as much on Thursday as I was thinking about how in the tournaments, in the majors that we've won, the putts have fallen on the weekend just strictly by just letting it happen. Giving yourself opportunities, believing that it will fall, being stubborn on the greens, is what Michael likes to say. So I would drawback on past major weekends as a different type of experience than any other experience that you can have. And luckily that hole looks big recently for us on major weekends, and that's what we just had to keep believing today. I was at a point today where I was not sure of where the ball was going to start off my putter face, and that's a really ugly feeling. And you just need to see one go before it just clicks right back in. It was nice, the one on 8 really lipped in, went around the hole and lipped in. And the one on 13, even though it was only five neat, it's pretty spiked up in that hole, because it was in a valley. It was bouncing, so it was nice to see that fall in the right lip, as well. That's all you need is a couple of lip-ins to keep that confidence going. Q. You're obviously a young guy, you'll have a lot of chances at the majors, but did the British Open kind of reinforce for you that these opportunities are precious, and when you're in contention, it's important to finish if off? JORDAN SPIETH: Yeah, where I've realized it wasn't the British Open, I realized we don't get to play another event like this until April of next year. And that makes you think, wow, there really only are a few of these, and they are precious, and you need to make the most of them. When I think of this being the last major of the year, it's a little bit of a sad feeling because I really thoroughly enjoy playing in majors. You want to make the most of it because even though it's been a great year, we've won two this year. At the same time, when you look back on your career years and years from now, you may not remember exactly what happened within a year, but you'll remember how many you've won and how many got away from you. So you look at it as a single major, as a chance to win this major and in that there's enough fight left in us to finish this one off tomorrow, I believe. And we'll probably be having to come back from a couple behind. Q. You said yesterday for the first time all year you were fighting a little bit of a quick hook with the driver and had gotten defensive off the tee. Was it just an overnight mechanical or just an attitude adjustment and being more aggressive? JORDAN SPIETH: It's a little bit of half and half. I went and worked on it for a good amount of time after the round yesterday. I went straight to the range and just wanted to focus through the back, not just on my driver. And then today on the range I found a nice aggressive swing that could produce a ball flight that I liked. I didn't hit my driver solid on the range at all. I was barely hitting it on the range. I had some quick hooks and I had some pushes. I got on it to No. 1 and hit a nice solid drive on 1 and 2, and went with a feeling of picking out a specific target, stop thinking about your darn swing, pick out a target, who cares what it looks like, how far it is, if it's in the fairway, you're going to be in a good position to make birdie. I picked the right clubs when I needed to club down. We hit more 3-woods and hybrid today than I have the past two days, and it paid off. Q. When you left St. Andrews, with the Grand Slam bid off the board, you were obviously able to regroup and remind yourself that three major titles is still a very historic season, did that conversation with yourself start on the plane right back? And if so, what did you say to yourself to make that sell? JORDAN SPIETH: It started about halfway through my putt from the Valley of Sin on 18 of St. Andrews, when I realized that it was going to miss just left. It was a very frustrating hole. Really two holes because of the magic that happened on 16. And then it was just a perfect storm to just make par on 17, give yourself a nice putt on 18 to win at St. Andrews. And the opposite happened. Yeah, it was very frustrating, not for the third leg, but just to have a chance to win another major. Like I was just saying before, it would have been really cool, the history part of it, but at the same time when you look back, that's a major that I had control of that I let slip away, which is the second one that I've done so. And so really kind of two and two in those scenarios where I felt like I had a chance to control the outcome of a major and didn't in a couple, did in a couple. But bouncing back, I certainly have a little chip on my shoulder this week that I want to get back from those last couple of holes at St. Andrews, but that won't be in my head tomorrow. Tomorrow it will be drawing all the positives that we've done, when we did win, why did we win, what was there, and how are we going to make it happen again. Q. Following up on that, you are one round away, last round of the last major of the year, do you feel a sense of history, potential history, a chance to become only the third guy to win three majors? JORDAN SPIETH: Just to try to get my name on the Wanamaker Trophy, that's about it, that's the only history I'll be thinking of when we step on the first tee is you can hoist that trophy tomorrow and make it happen. This isn't as much in my head off the course as it was to try and get the Grand Slam, when I was getting ready to shoot for it the last couple of days at St. Andrews. At this point it would be really cool, but it isn't a Grand Slam. So for me it's going to be the same kind of just same level of focus as I'm sleeping tonight, I'll sleep just fine. And I'll go into tomorrow strictly for the history piece of trying to get my name on a different major. It's a goal of mine to capture all four throughout my career. I've got a great opportunity to get the third right now. Q. Going back to the back nine today, I was wondering if there was a point in your mind where you were saying to yourself -- you certainly know what you're playing for and you know what it would mean to you to win, I'm not going to ask you that. But was there a point where you were basically saying to yourself, I have to do something in order to have a chance to play for the things I want to play for? JORDAN SPIETH: Yes, that happened walking off No. 10. I hit my wedge into No. 10 and I was pumped up because I knew 10, 11, 12 was a wedge that day; 13 is a wedge; 14 is a wedge. I've got these chances now, if I could start this one on 10, you could rally off five in a row. Phil made four in a row going through number 11 and almost made it on 12, made it on 13. I watched it earlier today. So it's out there. When that putt missed and I was walking off to 11, I said, all right, it's now or never at that point. I thought that if I could get to 10, if I could get three more, then I would still have a chance. And turns out, you do have a chance at 10-under, given the conditions are going to be hard. But 13 is a lot sweeter, so I'll take it. JOHN DEVER: Jordan, thanks so much. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports   |
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