ARNOLD PALMER INVITATIONAL

March 2, 2023

Jordan Spieth

Bay Hill Club and Lodge

Quick Quotes

Q. Can you talk about, with regard to Chris, you played with him, his story, and then obviously winning Sunday and the element of trying to keep hot, which you've done before, just trying to keep that heater going.

JORDAN SPIETH: I feel like Chris has been playing really well for the last couple years as he's gone through quite a bit in his life and come out stronger on the other side, it seems. He's been playing really well.

He's always just a phenomenal ball-striker. Every time I've played with him, he just hits a nice, 5, 10-yard draw every time. You want to know which way the ball's going at places like last week and this week and next week. They're good fits for his game. When you're in form, you're in form, really. And he's somebody who isn't going to overthink it and has seen a lot. So I'm not surprised at all. 5-under's a great round out here and maybe the only thing you could think is last week that kind of golf course takes a lot out of people.

But it seems to be that he didn't have inflammation, like he may have had in the past, and so he probably was able to rebound quickly and get off to a good start.

Q. When you know you're playing really well, can you describe what that is like? Do you feel like you're never going to hit another bad shot?

JORDAN SPIETH: No. I think it's more that your vision just tightens so much. You just get in a nice rhythm and you don't really see the bad. You only see the good. It's kind of, yeah, the hole starts to look pretty big, you start to believe all your reads, that kind of stuff. Where to win a golf tournament, regardless of how the whole week went, you're going to have to hole some putts that you need to hole at the end. I think that the hole starts to look bigger. It looked pretty smooth today. It was a pretty unassuming 5-under that he shot. Seven birdies after a bogey at the first, and then bogey the last, so pretty solid.

Q. After Riviera was that just one of those weeks?

JORDAN SPIETH: Yeah. I just needed to keep doing what I was doing. I put a lot of putting work in, some kind of setup adjustments back to how I used to setup and some kind of shoulder plant stuff, stuff that I don't want to have to work on, but I kind of need to right now.

I felt like it was really good today. I felt like I hit my lines a lot. I didn't make a ton. I made the ones I needed to. I would have liked to have made a couple around the turn. But I hit my lines beautifully, left a couple short in the heart, that kind of thing. So just need to keep progressing with everything.

I played well at Phoenix, and Riviera was really disappointing because I feel like I was playing better than Phoenix. I just had one or two swings and just a weird scenario, just kind of the wrong end of some breaks, and out there you don't get a whole lot of leeway, just like a place like this.

So it's nice to get off to a good start just to reassure kind of where I feel the state of my game's at.

Q. Obviously some pretty big news yesterday with the schedule. Can you just fill us in on what you make of all of the changes that we're going to see next year?

JORDAN SPIETH: Yeah, I'm very supportive. It's still you got to play well to be in the best position. It's a situation where everyone that holds a full TOUR card can play in every single event. I think that's important to note. And then hopefully it creates a future product model for the next 20-plus years that's even better than it has been. I'm trying to be a part of that next 20 years in those big events.

Q. Scottie was telling us that he's going to go back to Augusta prior to the Masters, just to kind of get the nostalgia and memories of last year out of the way, for lack of a better way to put it. Do you remember doing that and what that was like for you, how much that might have helped?

JORDAN SPIETH: I went in the fall, maybe December of 2015. It was really cool to go up and you see, in the champions locker room, there's a case that is creating kind of a memory of your win. There's a club, there's a story, a bunch of pictures. So going in there and seeing that and seeing your locker made and just the adjustments there. And then just being on the grounds, putting on a jacket.

Yeah, there's something to that. That's smart, I think. I don't feel like Scottie's personality needs it, but I'm sure if he feels he needs to do it, then it's a good idea.

Q. Can that help tournament week where you have gotten that out of the way?

JORDAN SPIETH: Yeah. There's still so much as a defending champion there, hosting the dinner and everybody, just the noise. I think it may help a little bit, but I think you still got to get there and get refocused and it's a little bit, I would say a little bit harder than if you kind of fly under the radar.

Q. On the schedule, do you guys all feel LIV a bit of thanks for all this? Have they triggered kind of everything that's changed here?

JORDAN SPIETH: Yeah. I would be lying if I said that we would have gone through this without LIV. But at the same time, they haven't -- we haven't mentioned them in any of our discussions on what we think's best for the TOUR.

So there was a few things, obviously, like the Player Impact Program, stuff that the TOUR was doing to try and make sure they were, could hold their best assets, or best players, whatever you want to call it, and then from there, it was, all right, everyone in this room's committed. Let's figure out what this future product model should look like.

Then the TOUR's been all ears. It's been a player-friendly player-organized situation. So it's been honestly pretty fun to be a part of. I hope that we can kick it off the right way and don't have to make too many adjustments to it because that's the main thing now is trying to get it as close to right the first time as possible.

Q. Max made the point yesterday that it might be tougher to have 60, 70 years of history and trying to retool or reshape something compared to like LIV starting out from scratch and maybe not having any history behind it. When you guys got into your meetings, was that at all a struggle to ignore or, what's been going on since 1983?

JORDAN SPIETH: I think some of the veterans in there, guys like Tiger, who are -- and even Rory, pretty influential and saying, Hey, this is a meritocracy, and we need to keep it the way that, like a lot of things in line with the way the TOUR, you know, essentially take some out of PIP, boost it back into purses, stuff where when you play well you get rewarded, and you don't, if you don't, keeping it that way, to an extent. Keeping that in mind, I should say.

And I think we've found a pretty good balance right now in holding on to what you're talking about, that history of it, but also making modern adjustments that I think, in my opinion, reward appropriately to the guys who beat the best in the world week-in and week-out.

Q. The one word that seems to come out of this is churn. Who came up with that one?

JORDAN SPIETH: I don't know. Who did?

Q. Apparently it wasn't you then, right?

JORDAN SPIETH: I don't know who came up with churn, yeah. But, I mean, obviously -- the other thing too is like the FedExCup, that wasn't right the first time, it wasn't right after 10 years, it wasn't, you know. So there were changes there that six, seven years in you didn't really notice what people were upset about when it started. I think you're looking at doing the same thing here, but trying to look 10 years in advance, make sure that we're getting closer to what everyone is going to be happy with there.

Honestly, it's just about a commitment from the top guys. The whole point is trying to get the best players in the world playing as often as possible on the PGA TOUR in the same events. And I think this scenario is a really good one and I think pretty close to the final of it with just a few kinks to get out.

Q. Did you feel like your voice was heard when you were on the board, and if so, could you give an example?

JORDAN SPIETH: Yeah. I think that, I went on the board in 2019, pre-COVID. I would say the start of that I was a listener in board meetings, as I probably should be. Then COVID changed everything. We had dozens of board meetings versus three a year. I would take board meeting calls from a chipping green for three hours at a time and just hit five chips in three hours, but I'm just -- and that's where we felt like we had to figure out how comfortable are players.

And then the independent directors want to know how comfortable the guys are. Where are we at in different markets, when can we start, how do we become first but do it safely, and that really triggered, I think, a lot of -- there wasn't anything holding that back before. I think guys who served on the board felt their voices were heard, guys like Davis who did it a long time.

But I felt like now everyone should feel -- after serving there, I would tell anyone that their voice would be heard at the board level, regardless of who the player is and what it's about.