THE 149TH OPEN

July 16, 2021

Jordan Spieth

Mixed Zone

Q. Jordan, good playing today. First of all, just how big was that par on 18?

JORDAN SPIETH: I think that it was certainly nice. I had a really -- those last six holes were kind of frustrating. I felt -- I don't know, I think I need to bring more food on the golf course tomorrow. I got really just in a weird head space, like fatigued there on like the 13th green as we were waiting and hitting putts.

I just didn't stay focused like I was early in the round. Wasn't very sharp. It's an easy solution for tomorrow. But the finish on 18 probably securing a second to last group on a Sunday is a good position to be in, but today was an afternoon where I was looking -- I was eyeing a number lower than what I finished at, as Louis is showing.

Q. The conditions outside there today seemed to be crispening up over the afternoon. Was it much of a difference between start to finish? Did you feel that the greens were firming up a little bit and maybe bouncing instead of going straight and dying or maybe hitting towards rough?

JORDAN SPIETH: I felt like it started to get a little shiny for sure. With the forecasted conditions being sunshine and less wind, I imagine they'll let them firm up because that will be the defense of the golf course.

I know that was the case the last time The Open Championship was held here, and it puts more of a premium on hitting out of the fairway for sure. I might look into what clubs I'm hitting off tees. I've been able to hit driver a lot around this course, and I'm not sure if that'll stay the same or if I'll look to make sure we're positioning ourselves in the fairway more.

Q. With all those low scores being shot the first two rounds, what's your mindset like heading into the weekend knowing there's plenty of birdies out there?

JORDAN SPIETH: Yeah, I think I wasn't really sure what to expect going into yesterday's round and just tried to kind of play hole by hole, and now you get, like you mentioned, a pretty good idea of what it can yield.

These pin locations, though, they may not look so tricky on television, but they're on -- a lot of them are on crowns and knobs and they've left a lot of opportunities to make them very, very subtly challenging, and I think that that's what's going to happen, which will obviously make it a little bit harder to make putts or get balls really close to the hole.

I think they made it a good mix with some fun pins these first couple days, as well, but I think, again, looking at the forecast, which I guess could change over here, but it's been pretty consistent, you'd imagine it's going to yield some birdies, and I think greens in regulation are key.

The greens are effectively a lot smaller than they look, where the pins can actually be located in a lot of runoffs.

For me personally it's just keep doing what I've been doing and then try and make a few more putts.