	products recent interviews FastScripts archive about ASAP Sports

Our Clients:

Browse by Sport

Find us on

Subscribe to RSS

Click to go to
Asaptext.com

View our
e-Brochure

AT&T BYRON NELSON

May 20, 2018

Jordan Spieth

Irving, Texas

Q. You're a member here. Four days you saw the course play in three very different ways. How would you assess this week?
JORDAN SPIETH: Yes, the golf course coming in a lot of guys actually had kind of tougher views from about a year ago, drew a lot of players away but it was overwhelmingly positive this week, which is really cool to hear.

The golf course played for the most part the way it is how Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw designed it to play, firm and balanced. Took a couple years for the grass to fill in and be able to play like that. Pretty awesome. A unique golf course.

Q. As we were watching a little bit of golf before we came on and we were talking about what these players really have to do on the back-9 to capitalize, for you, what's going to be the key as we continue to watch this afternoon?
JORDAN SPIETH: Aaron just drained another putt. If you play 10 through 13 under par that's really the tough stretch of this golf course and then 14, reachable par 5, no wind on 15, 16, 17, 18. Feed it in, 4 through 17 there. Obviously he'll have to keep the gas pedal down as Marc will be looking to play aggressive and you really can on those holes.

He's what now, 23-under? That's a pretty good score to post. That one will be hard to beat.

Q. For you next week going back to Colonial, a place where you won, standing on that chair trying to look at watching the plays to put yourself into contention again, how much confidence do you have to go back to a place that you're really so comfortable with?
JORDAN SPIETH: I'm very excited. My game is in really in good shape, tee to green been very solid this year, making progress. Had a lot of really good putts that week that somehow missed on a lot of them. I had trouble reading the greens. I don't struggle reading the greens at Colonial. Be nice to go back the a very familiar place. Three years ago I was standing on the 18th green watching Chris Kirk won and did the same for Kevin Kisner.

Q. Jordan, some overall thoughts on the week and your play this week.
JORDAN SPIETH: Yeah. Felt like I played better than I scored. Typically when you say that it just means putts didn't go in but, you know, even today I made one, probably my longest one of the week on No. 1 from about 12 feet and I felt really good about the strokes I made today.

Just burned edges or just barely missed and I misread a lot of putts, too. Overall, just struggled a bit on matching line and speed and kind of getting it altogether out here.

Obviously some guys aren't struggling so much with it, making a lot of putts. Game is in good shape. I'm very confident going forward.

Like I mentioned the last couple of days, I've -- it's always been a struggle for me reading these greens and this week in the tournament was no different. I'm going to a place that I've been very comfortable and have putted well consistently in Colonial next week. The utmost confidence.

Q. Lot of questions about Trinity Forest going into this week. What do you think was accomplished in this tournament?
JORDAN SPIETH: I think -- I think it was a really positive outcome for the golf course and the tournament here and I say that partly because it really was but also because a year back when the caddy event was here and other players came and played it it wasn't playing the way it's intended to play. It was too new, wasn't ready yet and got some really bad reviews.

I think compared to the initial reviews what I heard this week, and I know it's been reported differently, I was talking to all the players, I asked a lot of guys, I didn't hear one bad thing said.

A lot of guys said, "It's grown on me day to day, I really enjoyed it as a change of pace, I had a lot of fun playing this golf course." Those were lines guys were using this week and shouldn't be reported any differently.

It was an overwhelmingly positive outlook from the players that played. I think as the greens continue to fill in and mature, they'll only be more consistent and the course gets better.

Q. You think they'll continue to improve over the next few years?
JORDAN SPIETH: The reason the scores are so low, pitch and putt. But springtime in Texas this is very rare to have three days with no wind. This course typically plays like yesterday and whatever the average score was, that's what you're looking at normally three out of four days here.

So, I think these will be record scores for a number of years here and it will be somewhere around 12 to 16-under if we get typical Texas spring in the future which I think makes you think more around this golf course. It brings in more trouble. You can't fire at flag sticks. Got to play wind and different ball flights and, you know, that's the one thing is when there's no wind because there's no trees, you know, you can't make the golf course that difficult or else it's unplayable with wind.

So, it will get better and better I think for sure.

Q. (Inaudible)
JORDAN SPIETH: I think it's going to -- it's a totally different schedule next year and this will be a completely -- I mean it could be a similar time, it could be a different time of the year within a month or two, and I think it will depend on what tournaments it's near.

Changing golf courses around a Players Championship, the Colonial, that's very popular, Muirfield, U.S. Open, this allows for a week off with the unknowns and it makes total sense for guys to skip.

I think having seen the coverage and listening to what I was talking about the other players saying, I mean if it becomes a week before a Major or at least in a better time in the schedule, then the field will drastically change. Otherwise it will get a little bit better.

Q. What do you like about Colonial?
JORDAN SPIETH: Fits my eye. I like the shape of holes. It's the grass types that I grew up on, the bermuda, the bermuda rough and fairways. I found a really good time on the greens there. I made a lot of putts there.

I'm not exactly sure but it's just one of those courses where whether I have an A game or not, I seem to find my way into contention which is really cool. It's one of four, five places I go into no matter where the game is at I'm excited to get started and feel like I have a chance to win. This year, feel really good about the progress that was made throughout the last couple of weeks on the greens and start falling.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

ASAP Sports, Inc. | T: 1.212 385 0297