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THE MEMORIAL TOURNAMENT PRESENTED BY NATIONWIDE

May 30, 2019

Jordan Speith

Dublin, Ohio

Q. Talk about your round?
JORDAN SPIETH: Two chip-ins certainly helped. I felt like I stole a couple early in the round to be under par, and then just kind of played the shots that needed to be played.

I hit a lot of fairways, which was nice, which gave me plenty of looks at birdie, and seemed to capitalize on quite a few of them. I hit a long eagle putt on 5. That was certainly a nice boost for the round.

Q. You've been telling us for a while the game is a work in progress, but it's progressing. How did you feel out there today?
JORDAN SPIETH: It was okay. Some more work to do on it. I missed three greens with wedges and plugged one in a bunker with a punch 8-iron. So I had four opportunities, ended up off the green on all of them. Some of those short clubs can certainly get a little tighter. All in all I'm happy with the progress that's been made.

Q. Putting still feeling good?
JORDAN SPIETH: Yeah, I felt like I made every putt I needed to make. Got a long one to go on 5. And made a couple of really nice par saves and really a nice two-putt bogey on No. 8. When the putter feels good, it frees up the rest of the game.

Q. Fine form rolls on here, good start?
JORDAN SPIETH: Thank you. Shoot 6-under around Jack's place, I think I did that once in my life. Very pleased with it.

Q. 12 of 14 fairways. You have to keep it in play. What does that say where you are and how you feel about your swing now?
JORDAN SPIETH: Yeah, pretty good. It's soft, and the fairways are a little wider here, but you can't miss them. So I lined up on some straighter lines and played tighter curves instead of what I've been doing, which is lining up to the edges and try to curve it all the way back.

That was a good strategy today. My 3-wood was really solid. I hit that on a lot of holes. And I'd like to really improve with my driver quite a bit as the week goes on.

Q. I saw the 3-wood a lot today. Is that just because you know position is so important out here, or something where you've been able to find fairways is something that can trigger the rest of the game?
JORDAN SPIETH: The 3-wood goes into the widest part of some of these fairways. If I'm hitting 9-iron or 7-iron from the fairway. There's not a huge difference if I were to pull the driver off. But if you miss with the driver, it's in the lip of a bunker or in deep rough. It was a positioning play and just make sure that I'm hitting irons out of the fairway.

Q. You texted a little bit with Coach Fields last night. Oh, so close to matching your 2012 run, but I know you're proud of your horns?
JORDAN SPIETH: Absolutely. They used up a lot of energy there in the quarter and semifinal matches. What an awesome run by them. And they're really young and only going to get better.

Q. Lots of birdies. As you look back on the round, are you satisfied?
JORDAN SPIETH: Absolutely, yeah. 6-under around Muirfield I'd take any day of the week, no matter what form you're coming into it with. I felt like I hit more fairways today, gave me some more opportunities, and the putter stayed hot.

Q. The golf course is soft. Did you feel you had a little more opportunity to be aggressive out here today?
JORDAN SPIETH: You know, I don't think we've ever been here when it's been firm.

Q. True.
JORDAN SPIETH: It didn't play totally out of the ordinary. One thing is trying to be careful not to spin back too much. Makes it a little more difficult. You have to take more club and half swing it. And I wasn't really precise with those. I missed a few greens with wedges in my hand out of the fairway. So improve on that a little bit.

But all in all it was certainly there for the taking this morning. It looked like we were going to get rained on, and the forecast kind of split for us. It was certainly a good break there.

Q. How would you describe your state of mind, your emotions in that you're seeing tangible evidence that all this hard work is paying off?
JORDAN SPIETH: Yeah, it's not necessarily anything out of the ordinary, whether my results have shown if I've won three times before this in the past, the work I've put into it has been pretty consistent, just a little bit extra to try to round back into form.

It's nothing crazy out of the ordinary. This is my fourth week in a row, so for me at this point it's more save energy than it is go grind even more. So maybe hit a few wedges and call it a day.

Q. Great start. How does it work for you today?
JORDAN SPIETH: It was nice. Solid. I had two chip-ins. One of those days I didn't necessarily play like a 6-under score, but it was still a really solid day. I think I hit almost all the fairways, maybe missed one or two of them, and from there was able to get it on the greens. If I wasn't, I was in a pretty good place most of the time. And then the putter was what I like to see. In the last few weeks I've been putting pretty well. I made a long one today and kind of knocked all the ones in that I should have made.

Q. Did you make any adjustments from last week to this week?
JORDAN SPIETH: Just the same thing I've been doing. I feel like I'm doing significant feels through the swing, probably more so than I'd like. But it's just progressing in the right direction. It's just going to take a little bit more time, probably.

Q. Four tournaments in a row turned out to be a good thing for you?
JORDAN SPIETH: I normally do that -- I've always done it this stretch. I've always played four in a row. It's always been THE PLAYERS, this year it was the PGA. This one is my fourth -- this has always been my fourth tournament in a row. And I normally have maybe one other stretch where I do that during the season, and then three in a row or whatever.

I normally -- I mean, I've had three weeks off in one, and then it's been the third week in a row. I don't think there's anything to it. I like having played the week before, especially if I'm moving the right direction, because you start to just not make kind of any mental mistakes that you sometimes make the first week out of the gates. But you feel like you fine tune what's already been working.

Q. The fact that you have been working your way back, and now you're seeing these good results --
JORDAN SPIETH: Yeah, to keep playing, trying to trust things on the golf course in tournament play is big for me now because, like I said, it's kind of a significant type of feeling through the swing that if I took a couple of weeks off and came back, it's a little harder to trust that right away.

But if you're used to trusting it, it's almost like playing through the -- I don't want to say slump, but playing through anything that's been a little off. And more trusting the golf course the better. That's how I came back last year.

Q. When you made that chip-in at 11, which was vintage Jordan, does it free you up? Does it help you even on full swings in the rest of the round?
JORDAN SPIETH: Yeah, I felt it was going probably six or seven feet by. So that one was -- I was not deserving of that birdie. I just hit a horrible wedge in there. But, yeah, I felt like I stole one. So what it does is it helps me kind of settle in, hey, we already stole a shot, let's let it come to me. Play the middle of the greens, make sure you're missing in the right places. Makes you not have to force anything as much versus if I were to make a 6 there, you feel like you want to get it back. It always helps.

Q. Justin called the rough unbelievable here. How would you describe it?
JORDAN SPIETH: Yeah, I think it's tough and fair. With how soft it is right now, the fairways are lighter here. I think they have more width here than they do other weeks on average. You should be penalized if it's missed and we are out here. The rough is brutal. This is the highest rough we'll see outside of a major championship pretty much every year. And it plays really thick, too, just the type of grass it is.

Q. (No microphone.)
JORDAN SPIETH: I hit a 3-wood and then hit a hybrid, kind of missed it a little bit, but I missed it in the right place, kind of hit soft in the front of the green, and I had 35 feet. Pretty straight putt, a little left and back to the right.

It was all about putting the right pace on it. About five feet to go, I thought it was going in. I raised my putter off, it's one of those cool ones that you start to see going in and there's still a few feet to go. So it was a nice boost in the round, for sure.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

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