WGC DELL TECHNOLOGIES MATCH PLAY

March 23, 2022

Jordan Spieth

Austin Country Club

Quick Quotes

Q. Close match with Keegan. How pleasing is it to be here right now with your first win?

JORDAN SPIETH: Very pleased. If you lose your first match, you don't control anything going forward. You're not out of it, but I thought today might be kind of a tough one. I knew he's such a good driver of the golf ball that around this place if he's driving it well it's going to leave him with quite a few opportunities.

The only fairway he missed today was a hybrid he hit right down the middle and went through the fairway on 10 -- sorry, he missed two, he missed the 15th hole.

It wasn't like a pretty match, but when somebody is in position like that every hole, it makes it a little bit challenging mentally for who's playing with him, especially when I did not drive it particularly well, as good as I have been.

Didn't lead until 16 and once I won 16, then I felt in control there briefly.

The north wind makes -- the course is designed for the south wind, so when you get the north wind it's very tricky. Without a whole lot of prep on the course, I only saw the front nine. So I kind of struggled a little on some lines on tees and stuff throughout the back nine and fortunately still played it a couple under.

Q. 13 was halved in 4s.

JORDAN SPIETH: Yeah, it'll be halved in 4s a lot today, but maybe not the way ours was. It's weird, it's a 3-wood off the tee and you just land it just right of the green or short of the green. If you get it in the air it carries far enough and it just goes over and you chip it into the wind, it's an easy hole.

I went to driver because all you have to do is just blow it over the green, but I've never played a shot where I tried to hit it 40 yard past the pin.

I got over it and instead of just ripping a high one like Keegan did, I found myself in a weird spot trying to chip cut it and just high toed it. I don't know, it was an awkward situation where I just wasn't very committed, even though it was the most committed shot you could possibly hit.

Q. I would think in the landing strip area, when you hit one of your better wedges for the day, that didn't look like walking off that green with a half.

JORDAN SPIETH: It looked look I was going to win the hole for a minute.

Keegan misjudged a few chips today that helped a bit. He didn't have many chips. They were really the par-5s, and then the short drivable holes because he hit most of the greens.

If you just get a little tentative with that chip from over the green, it's awfully tilted right at the hole there into the water, and when he didn't fly it on to the green I thought this is probably going in the hazard.

Michael had a -- I assume most of the caddies have the number from that drop zone and I know I've hit that shot a few times before, but he was dead on -- he had the cover number on this line and on this line and it was in the middle of it, and it was easy to commit to that wedge.

Then yeah, after Keegan makes his putt, it had been a long time since I'd played a shot. I got a putt that breaks about that much, and it was a weird, weird hole.

I wouldn't even say that it was like a momentum boost for me and it wasn't one for him. I certainly got to feel like I stole a little something out of that after my tee shot.

Q. You hit some great putts like 15 on, but you were really irritated on 14. You had about a nine-footer. Could you describe -- it went left, I think, a little bit.

JORDAN SPIETH: Yeah, on 14? It was just -- I just misread it really, really poorly. I had made really nice putts on 12 and 13 before. They were a little shorter, and I thought that was my chance to go 1-up. I wasn't super upset walking off, I was just more -- that was my chance to take control, take the lead and hit the fairway the next hole and go. I know he probably felt -- I felt momentum over it, and I felt like I hit a good putt, and I was just shocked at how much it broke.

Q. Then starting the 15th --

JORDAN SPIETH: 15 was everything for me. That was wind kind of gusting, blowing, it kind of breaks and then it straightens, you kind of got to get it right onto the crown of the putt and it went right in the middle of the hole. And I just didn't make a putt outside of five, six feet the whole day, and I felt like I was hitting good ones, and the putt on 15 I felt really good about the finish to the round if I needed to make one coming in after that.

Q. 17 you didn't like your tee shot?

JORDAN SPIETH: No, I thought the pin was actually further back, so I actually ended up okay. I hit a bad first putt. The wind was supposed to be kind of humming off the right so I tried to hold something into it and I just kind of skanked it a little. I've got to get a little sharper, it was really that pitching wedge, 9-iron, gap wedge range today that I feel like is a strength of my game and it was pretty sloppy other than the one approach into 13.

Q. Do you feel like you get a lot of momentum since maybe you didn't play your "A" game?

JORDAN SPIETH: Yeah, I just kind of had a feeling -- my last I would call real round of golf in a tournament that I played was Sunday of Riviera, given THE PLAYERS was just a mess of the two rounds I played, and that's a long time ago.

I felt as if it was the start to the season in a way. Like I felt jittery and like I was going to have to really almost like knock some rust off in a way, even though it's mid-March, which shouldn't be the case.

Having said that, I thought today might be a tougher round, but I think the more I play, the more you kind of lean on shots you're a little more comfortable and sharper as you get.

Q. Can you talk us through what happened on 16? I think it had something to do with Keegan hitting out of bounds.

JORDAN SPIETH: Yeah, he hit it and I could see it go through the bunker and the people get out of the way. I didn't know what was over or down there. I thought it was a hazard, so I was going to hit, and Michael said, Hey, I think you should wait in case that's out of bounds. I said, is it -- he said it could be Keegan's shot again. He said he thinks that that might be out of play. He doesn't remember that being a hazard. Michael said that. So I was getting ready to hit until he said that.

So we called an official and I was like, Keegan, I'm sorry, I don't want to go out of turn. I could have hit, not knowing, and if you think it's in play and you hit and it's out of play, you didn't violate anything and they can't tell you to re-hit it. So I actually would have been okay.

But it also really helped to know that he was out of bounds and I changed to a 6-iron short left of the green where I could just pitch it up the green and didn't try and knock it on in two.

But yeah, I just didn't know that -- I thought I could hit a shot on to the green there, if he walks up and it's out of bounds and has to re-hit, I went out of turn, he could tell me to re-hit it. It was a new one.

It's kind of like when two guys are the same distance and like we flipped a tee once today, and that doesn't mean necessarily whoever went first is further away technically, but it's okay and that's not against the rules and you can't tell them to re-hit it.

It doesn't happen in like a Ryder Cup where you've got an official every hole, but it happens in this tournament, I guess.