MASTERS TOURNAMENT

April 7, 2023

Jordan Spieth

Quick Quotes

Q. You haven't been able to get much going on the second nine. What's happened on the second nine the last two days?

JORDAN SPIETH: I would say I hit some uncharacteristic chips and then yesterday it was two water balls off pretty good swings at bad targets. I don't think it's a back nine thing. I think it just was -- that's where I happened to make a swing that -- yesterday I kind of overcooked a 6-iron and it was about a yard from perfect, ends up in the water. That's a shot and a half. Then I lined up too close to the pin out of the pine straw and there's two shots, maybe three.

Just a couple swings today, I had a really good chance on 11 knock in -- I had two great shots and had eight feet that I left just short in the heart, and I felt like that might have been something to kick in some momentum to finish the round, and I just didn't make anything from there on in. I missed the par-5 greens in regulation. You can't do that. I just haven't found greens in regulation.

Q. What did you do on 15?

JORDAN SPIETH: Yeah, it was right when the wind was switching, and on the tee it felt in off the left and when I hit my drive the ball goes up in the air and starts going way left. It was going to happen at some point, and it had just kind of flipped on the hole before that way, but it was kind of just turning.

So I ended up way over on the left side and I had to hit a wedge over the trees to lay up. I pitched a sand wedge about three feet from the hole, but it went just a little too far to the fringe, so the spin didn't bring it back to the hole, so I ended up making actually a really nice four-, five-footer for par. It's one of those pin positions today where you want to be able to get it even down further towards the water so you can skip it up to the pin or just knock it on that right side in two, and my tee shot left me in a position where I couldn't do either.

Q. You've been in the position where Brooks is in now. What was the last 36 holes like for you that year where you feel like everything is going beautifully but you've still got 36 holes to go?

JORDAN SPIETH: Well, I think for me I was 21 and hadn't won a major yet. Brooks is 32 or 33 and he's won four of them. He hasn't won this one, which means a little bit more, I think, but it's a different scenario for him. He's slept on these leads way more often than I had at the time.

It's just more the anticipation. You almost just want to keep playing, and you have to wait. Then late tee times here, I don't know what it's going to be. I don't know if we'll even play much later in the day tomorrow or what.

He won last week. He's obviously in control of his game. The benefit we have, those of us chasing, is that it's going to be incredibly difficult conditions, so that makes it hard on all of us. It means a few under goes a long way.

Q. (On birdieing 13 and 15.)

JORDAN SPIETH: I mean, the par-5s in general, those are where you're really looking to score because they normally give you a few other opportunities with a couple pins each day on some other holes, but then they'll even take some wedge holes and not allow you to really have a good birdie look like 14 today and 7 today. They're just pins that you can't really get it close to.

You really just look for the par-5s and you're really trying to play them 3-under or better if you can.

I got a good break on 13, and I hit a bad wedge, and then 15 I just -- I hit a really nice drive, just got a little bit too far and too far left. Did my job on the front nine, I just didn't on the back. All in all, they're very important because they're the birdie looks when you step on the tee to start the round where you've kind of circled.

Q. Does it feel like things are close enough that you could really make a charge?

JORDAN SPIETH: Yeah. Yeah. I feel like my last four events and then this being the fifth, I think I've gained strokes on the field in every category, driving, approach, chipping and putting.

I think this week it feels like I've been doing the same, just not quite to the level that kind of gets you on a really good run to 5- or 6-under. But you know, I started that yesterday and then kind of poorly played the 13th hole.

It's been a couple mental errors more than anything else, so if I clean those up, which the conditions may force me to clean those up, my game is in as good of a spot as it's been in quite a while, but seven shots is a lot to overcome.

Q. Where do you keep your replica trophy?

JORDAN SPIETH: It's in my house, in my office.

Q. Do you see it often?

JORDAN SPIETH: I actually don't go in there very often at all. I almost never go in there. I only go in there if my son goes in there because he ran off somewhere and I've got to go pick -- so he doesn't knock anything over. I honestly spend one day every five months I walk in there.

Q. On that one day do you smile, though, when you see it?

JORDAN SPIETH: Yeah, I don't walk in there to see it. Normally I'm on a phone call or something. But yeah, sure. It's one of those things I don't -- I see myself caring more towards 25 years from now, but until then I want to pretend I haven't won anything.

Q. Are we looking at two different tournaments between the first 36 and the last 36?

JORDAN SPIETH: I hope so. It would be really good for me. Yeah, because it's going to be the opposite direction of wind, and then tomorrow if we're playing it's going to be playing in rain and wind, so the ball is going to go significantly shorter. You're going to get tee balls that just -- you get water balls. You're just going to have to manage a lot.

In some cases you could argue that's a good thing to have a big lead, but in other cases you could argue if he kind of falters a little and you kind of are able to shoot an under-par round somehow, you could make up a lot of strokes easily.

Q. Obviously you're going to see a game-time situation when you come out here in the morning. How aggressive do you play? How do you calculate that?

JORDAN SPIETH: By the looks of it, you wait for the par-5s and you try and make pars pretty much everywhere else. The one thing I have not done well at all this week is greens in regulation, and it's one of the most important stats out here, and that will be as important as anything this weekend.

Picking a plan to put the ball in the fat part of the green and trusting speed control and knocking in putts inside five feet. So not very aggressive with those conditions. You don't have to be to make up shots when the conditions are bad. You've just got to look at the par-5s as your opportunities, and the rest of them, if you steal one or two, great.

Q. Is chasing somebody who's won a major championship different than chasing someone who has not won one?

JORDAN SPIETH: Regardless, there's nothing -- you can control what you can control. Ideally it would be somebody who would care more and potentially be feeling different than maybe Brooks will be. But at the same time, it's been a little while for him, too.

He did win last week. I don't know kind of the way that feels on the LIV Tour, but he did win there against really good players, and comes in playing in great control of his game and has dealt with pushing a lead already out here.

Yeah, ideally it would be if you were chasing, you don't want to be chasing Tiger Woods, you want to be chasing somebody who's never been there, but it doesn't matter because you control what you can control, you and the golf course.

I won't do much scoreboard watching. If he pushes it forward then I needed to play better the first two days, but I'll have a goal given the conditions, and it'll try to be to shoot under par on the weekend.