THE 150TH OPEN

July 16, 2022

Jordan Spieth

Mixed Zone

Q. First of all, just talk about the day. Obviously it was kind of up and down. We were just wondering too about putting. In general, it seems like guys were struggling to get the speed right today.

JORDAN SPIETH: Yeah, for me it wasn't as much the speed. You've got some differences, and some greens are green and some are really brown now. Like I went from the 7th and the 9th are just a totally different surface. One of them is super green and kind of grabs the ball, and then the 9th is like, watch out, it's glass.

So as they're trying to firm some spots up. It makes sense on those holes though because, on 7, if it was glass, it wouldn't be fair. But on the 9th, if it was green, it would be too easy. I think they've done a great job of where that is. Like the 17 is super green behind it, but if it was brown, it would be unplayable.

I think overall -- I struggled a little. I missed -- I hit it close on 7 and missed an eagle putt there. There was a long wait in between my drive and the putt, and I just hate that. Because we were waiting on different groups and such. It was probably 25, 30 minutes from when I teed off to when I had my putt, and I just overthought it and missed it and I got a little off myself. But that wasn't green speed; my speed control was better today.

What's difficult about it is a lot of the pin locations are in these tiny little tucked corners where, if you hit it more than 5 feet by, it goes 50 feet away. Guys are leaving them way short not for the same reason they were leaving them short last week. It's because you almost have to.

If you're more than 30 feet away, it's difficult to judge a bit with the wind. You've got a lot of ridge riders where, if you hit it too firm, it takes that knob, but they're not fast enough to be able to ride onto the fault line and get to the hole. It gets challenging if you don't hit it on the flat spots of the greens. Does that answer that? That was a lot.

Q. I can't say I watched every swing you made today, but it seems that at times you've gone away from a rehearsal.

JORDAN SPIETH: Yeah, I've maybe done it on two swings this week. I didn't do it much last week. Maybe one of the rounds I did and the others I didn't. I'm trying to go away from it, but I haven't really swung the club very well this week at all. Even the rehearsals I'm doing behind the ball aren't quite hitting the spots I want to.

That happens. I go two steps forward, one step back kind of thing. Just from round 1 it hasn't really been on. I don't think doing a rehearsal over the ball would help.

Q. Is it more of a comfort level thing?

JORDAN SPIETH: No, it's more I find myself doing a better job being shot focused if I'm not doing the rehearsal versus swing focused with the rehearsal. Having said that, I won with doing the rehearsal every swing. It can be done. It's more I'd rather not and just kind of be reactive. Here and there, I think I'll go back to different versions of it.

Just this week, I haven't been because I wanted to really stay as outwardly focused as I could.

Q. How's your grace worked out this week?

JORDAN SPIETH: Really poorly in round 1. Probably cost me a couple shots just not having the patience. At The Old Course you can't regardless -- unless it's going to be Armageddon out here, you just can't shoot 1-under. It's just giving too much to the field. The lowest round you can shoot is really 3-under unless you're going to throw a couple 8s at them.

You've just kind of got to be in that 4 to 5 range each day, and shooting 1-under. And I just wasn't patient enough round 1. A little frustrated maybe with knowing that I was trying to force my way through maybe the bad end of a draw. I think our wave kind of got hit a little harder the first day. And the second day it was pretty equal.

You knew going in, like, at The Open, if you find yourself -- really any tournament, but especially at The Open -- if you find yourself where you're maybe a shot or two on kind of the bad end, I just feel like I tried to force it a little bit on the first round and didn't give myself grace. And it bit me, and from there I've just been trying to climb back.

Q. Can you talk about tomorrow? Obviously you're a bit back. Now the lead is 15 --

JORDAN SPIETH: Yeah.

Q. This is a course that you can light it up, but you've got to -- I don't know. You tell me.

JORDAN SPIETH: I don't think with the conditions -- I mean, I'm trying to shoot -- I'm trying to -- each day I'm trying to get 5 or 6 by the 18th tee. You can get those all in the first seven or eight holes, eight, nine, ten holes. You can be 7-under through 10 if it's relatively calm in these Opens, but not by forcing it or trying to get there. It just comes passively so.

From where the pin positions are, if they continue -- these are gnarly, right? We don't have crazy tough -- they're benign conditions for Scotland. It's not hard to not make bogey. It's just hard to make birdie as often as you want to.

I guess for tomorrow, I have no reason to try and backdoor a top 10. For me, it's fire at it and try and shoot a really low round. If I don't execute, I don't execute. Scared swings tomorrow, that's really my goal.

Q. You have a nice break coming up. Three weeks?

JORDAN SPIETH: I do, yeah. This is eight out of ten. I'll probably do an ice bath tonight, which ice baths are a lot harder in Scotland than they are in Memphis.

Q. Do you do a lot of ice baths?

JORDAN SPIETH: I like to do cold therapy whenever I can. I think it's the most beneficial thing I've found.

Q. Cold therapy sounds better, by the way.

JORDAN SPIETH: If there's cold plunges, but it's ice baths over here.

Q. What does it do for you?

JORDAN SPIETH: I feel like I get fresh legs the next day. I try to get physio work on them and do that. If I don't do it versus do it -- I do that and NormaTec boots. You know those compression pants that people wear. I do those every night on the road and ice bath. If I don't do them, I actually feel my legs are fatigued the next morning. When I do, I don't notice it.

Q. If you weren't playing eight out of ten, would you do ice baths?

JORDAN SPIETH: It would depend on how many, to be honest. Like I can tell if I'm a little down or not, starting the week with energy. It just helps kind of get that energy -- and it helps me sleep better too.

Q. Where do you get the ice?

JORDAN SPIETH: I'm at the Rusacks.

Q. What room? Just kidding.

JORDAN SPIETH: And ice is hard to get into a Coca Cola over here, so I'm very lucky that they have access to a big ice machine, and they bring bags of ice. Justin's doing it over there too. So we've kind of -- we've gotten lucky that they've hooked us up there, yeah. Thank you. This is an unusual interview.

Q. Someone will have to sleep on a 54-hole lead. You've actually done that. How do you remember you slept that night?

JORDAN SPIETH: Which time? I've been fortunate to have quite a number of them. It's always a little uneasy. If you can take your mind off of it going to bed, watch a show or a movie and stay off your phone.

As long as you get to sleep, it's not really an issue. It's if you wake up in the middle of the night and all of a sudden you start thinking versus just getting back, it can kind of keep you up a bit.

They're teeing off at 4:00 in the afternoon. Even if you don't sleep well, you've got time from 8:00 to noon if you need to to go back to sleep. Over here it's more so the fact that you tee off so late. It's almost frustrating that the tee times are so late over here.

I understand why, obviously for television back in the States, but as a player, it's a bit unfortunate when you've done that work and then you just sit around pretty much the whole day. It's a little more challenging sleeping on it.

But it's nice when you're kind of coming from behind because you know it's that much harder, just the anticipation leading up.

This isn't exactly the hardest 1st tee shot. That's normally where you kind of start getting the nerves out of the way. So I don't think it's going to be a big deal -- especially if you look at the names at the top of the list, I don't think anyone is going to have a tough time sleeping.

That's why being at 8-under, I would need to finish my round and have some kind of crazy monsoon tomorrow to have a chance. Even if I shoot 8, I still think I lose by more than three. I'm in a position where shooting 7-, 8-under would have a really strong finish and I would gain a lot of momentum. There will be no give up. It's not like I'm in 45th, you know what I mean?