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NORTHERN TRUST OPEN

February 19, 2016

Jordan Spieth

Pacific Palisades, California

Q. Talk about today and the difference in the two rounds?
JORDAN SPIETH: Yeah, coming into the day, the hardest part is trying to make enough birdies, and I did that. Just too many mistakes. 11 was a killer hole.

My second hole of the day, after a fantastic birdie at the 10th, I hit a wedge out of the rough and I landed it pin-high on to a downslope and it sucked back into the bunker, short-sided dead. I would have never guessed that a ball could spin back 15 feet out of the rough out here. Just kind of shocked me.

I hit a pretty good putt that just dove off and then I plugged one in the bunker on 12. So a couple kind of tough breaks in a row after a really good start.

Just can't -- yeah, I had a perfect round, and still gained enough momentum to have a chance through ten holes. I mean, four birdies in a row through No. 1, and then I just -- same thing as yesterday. Just some sloppy iron play.

When I miss irons, typically they are still going to be on the green. That's what I pride myself on is having pretty solid misses, distance-wise and where they are left, and I just had some very, very wayward irons this week. That needs to be fixed by probably some rest and some time away from my clubs for a few days.

And then when I come back, I'll probably add the ball count from what I've had recently. I've been trying to rest and maybe not practice as much as I normally would to kind of conserve energy. It kind of showed. I just need to be out there on the range a little bit more than I have been leading up to events.

Q. Does today's round let you feel good about the few days off and kind of get back at it again?
JORDAN SPIETH: Coming into today, I had a good feeling I would shoot a good score; I would adjust to the course a little bit. The greens were going to be so much easier to putt on than the afternoon, so I figured I would be able to roll it a bit better and both happened.

But yeah, I can certainly take positives out of today's round. That's a lot of birdies. There and Pebble are the only two rounds where I think I've made more than four, going back to Hawai'i. That's normally another strong suit for me is birdie count per round. That was good to see. It's good to see some of those mid-range putts start to do what they have been doing for awhile now.

Yeah, I've got an extra couple days of rest from what I would have had, and I'll be ready to go come next tournament. I'm not going to let this one get to me very much. Did a lot of talking with Michael throughout the end of the round today. Just saying, you know, don't make this a bigger deal than it is. Look at your missed cuts last year and what happened right after, and he's right. We rebounded in a perfect form last year on just about every missed the cut. We'll be fine.

Q. Based on all the talk about rest, is that from all the travel that you've done; is that coming from that, and also is it more physical exhaustion or mental exhaustion?
JORDAN SPIETH: Typically if you play quite a bit in a period of time, it doesn't matter where you are, you're still going to dial it back. You have a four-week stretch, you're going to take it a little easier, so you have -- it's nothing new.

Going overseas, we did have weeks in between, so I'm not -- it's nothing out of the ordinary, and there's no excuse for me to say that right now, because I felt 100 percent this week.

But in order to really feel like I'm gearing up and I'm ready for the Masters come Augusta, I'm going to need to start ramping up that ball count and just use everything I have and choose my start to be the next time I play.

I guess Rory is considering this the start to his run at the Masters. This was not my start to the run at the Masters. (Laughter) Mine will start the next time.

Q. The four cuts you've missed in the last year, I think that's about right, is it easier to take when you're a long shot on the second day?
JORDAN SPIETH: Oh, yeah, definitely. I can fire at pins. It's more stress-free. I've already gotten over the fact that, hey, if I miss the cut, I've already been upset about that for a day. I'll never check out of my hotel -- I didn't check out of my hotel room today. I'll never do that prior to arriving at the course, because there's always going to be a chance.

But I certainly hope that it's not the way it was -- as much as it was easier mentally to take, it's less fun to not feel like you have a good opportunity to still win the tournament after any round. You shoot a couple over out here in the first round, still have a chance to win. That was a tough day to swallow yesterday, and got over it and made some putts today.

Q. How did you get over it so quickly --
JORDAN SPIETH: It's already done. Nothing I can do about it. The more upset you get, the more drastic you make everything seem, and maybe it's not that bad. Like I said yesterday, my game felt fine. It's just very odd to see some of the ball flights. When I struck it, I thought it would do something different. Something that happens one day in every year, year and a half. You hope it's in a Pro-Am day or practice round day. The timing is going to throw it into mix in a tournament round every once in awhile.

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