MASTERS TOURNAMENT

April 9, 2023

Jordan Spieth

Quick Quotes

Q. Jordan, did it feel a little like 2018?

JORDAN SPIETH: Honestly not really. Until, I guess, 14, 15. But I didn't look at the board until then and see. I figured guys were a couple under and it was kind of out of reach.

Then after that, yeah, I was trying to honestly just match Phil shot for shot coming in. And just toed it off 18. I felt really good over it. Drove the ball -- I was a little off on the weekend driving it. Just played a nice fade on 18. I made a good swing, I just stood too far away from it and toed it so it went over where I didn't have much of a shot.

I felt like -- what did I shoot, 6-under and three bogeys? Two par-3s, I was a foot off. I landed it on 4 in the fringe and it came back in the bunker, and I made bogey. I was a foot off of about a five-footer on 16 and it hit right under the lip.

When you're that far back, you have to have everything go right. It was close, but I should have done a lot better in those first three rounds. I made a tremendous amount of mental mistakes. To be this close now, it's nice, but it also almost frustrates me more because I really -- I made some mistakes I don't normally make out here, and it was more decision errors than anything else.

Q. The putt at 16, was that maybe one of the keys to where you were thinking -- I realize we were well into the round, but that was a big putt, it seemed like.

JORDAN SPIETH: It was. I wasn't looking at 17, 18 to be birdieable, to be honest. With 17 where it is, and 18 being a long iron in. So I thought I needed to make that and try to make two pars and essentially did that with a birdie and a bogey. I just hate bogey on the last hole. It's the worst feeling.

Q. What's the roller coaster of emotions where you think you have a chance on 18 and then you get up to the ball and it's resting on the twig?

JORDAN SPIETH: I was happy to have a swing. You don't lit hit it left there. The fact that I could advance it to where I did was actually a really good break.

The low fades have been something that I've been really trying to work on. It hurt me in Tampa, and I had an opportunity to really pull it off there on 18, and I didn't. So I've still got to keep working on that. That's a shot that has been in my arsenal, and it's kind of left me a little bit over the last six weeks or so where I've got a lot of other shots.

That's one that I use under pressure and use really well, and I haven't had it in the last month, and I need to get it down a little bit better.

Q. What do you attribute the mental mistakes to?

JORDAN SPIETH: I think I played way too much golf into this. I came in mentally fatigued, and you overwork this week every year. I played way too much golf in the last -- I mean, this is eight out of ten weeks. So I need to change my schedule up going forward to be a little sharper this week. I think that has a lot to do with it.

Then just a little lack of patience with the course being softer, thinking that meant I could try to attack more pins. Same thing I do at THE PLAYERS every year. You have to let the course come to you out here. I do a better job here than anywhere else, and it left me this week.

I just feel I got a little bit lazy in picking targets. I probably only had a target 50 percent of the shots this week, and I like to have them 100 percent of the time. I kind of was trying to remind myself, but there was a few swings Thursday and Friday where I could have really taken it quite a bit deeper and left a few out there.

Q. You mentioned trying to match Mickelson shot for shot. How well was he playing?

JORDAN SPIETH: I think he missed one fairway, which was fairway No. 3, and I think that's a fairway he hit 99 out of 100 times. So obviously he's playing really solid golf.

Then I think 6 was a big moment for him. That was such a hard hole for him today with the wind. Your normal wind it's a good little par-3, but today it's brutally difficult. When he birdied there into 7, I think he started to get a little pep in his step. Then he kind of carried it on from there.

Q. What was the atmosphere like out there?

JORDAN SPIETH: It was great. It was actually pretty quiet for some of the stretches, and then once we both started to really get it going around 10, 11, 12, 13 there, it started to pick up in our group.

It was really cool. I don't know -- obviously being with Phil, who's won it a few times, you get some pretty cool ovations, and I know I've had some really good ones myself.

But it was really awesome going to 12 tee and going to 16 tee. I have a lot of great memories coming off that 15th green, from the year I won, the year after, '18, and now this year where you feel like everyone's trying to will the ball in for you. It's a really cool feeling you don't get anywhere else but here.

Q. Obviously Phil and some others are in this event forever until they want to stop playing. To see what he did, what Koepka did, what some of the other LIV guys did, do the majors lose something down the stretch if those guys aren't able to get in somehow?

JORDAN SPIETH: I don't -- I mean, if you qualify, you qualify. I've always been a proponent that you shouldn't keep somebody out if they qualified. As long as people keep qualifying, whoever you typically have the fields that you normally have because that criteria makes you have to play really, really good golf.

So I don't see a scenario where it's not going to happen, to be honest.

Q. Well, World Ranking Points, actually.

JORDAN SPIETH: Sure. But I imagine they'll probably get World Ranking Points. Does it put a few guys that haven't qualified via the majors a little behind? Sure. Then they'll have to catch up by playing well.

I'm not sure. I think that every major wants to have the best field possible. So they come up with a criteria that they feel will yield that. I think, if that's not the case, then they'll change it to yield that.

Q. You're going to Hilton Head next week to play there?

JORDAN SPIETH: Yeah, I love that golf course. It probably couldn't be any more different than this place, but I really enjoy playing it. You have to think your way through it. Hopefully it's drier.

Yeah, I'm looking forward to it. I can't wait to take a couple days off, though, and then get over there and maybe Tuesday late afternoon kind of get in a few rhythmic swings and kind of get into it.

It will feel a little different than last year. Last year I can't watch the Masters if I miss the cut. So I was playing golf on Sunday during the Masters in Hilton Head. So I won't be as prepared, but contending in a major is pretty good prep.

Q. Is this something you realized this week, playing too much golf?

JORDAN SPIETH: Yeah, I started to kind of realize it I would say this week, a little bit in match play. It was more than I've ever really played in that stretch.

No regrets. I didn't know. But I would attest some of my decision-making just to a level of focus that I wish I had a little bit more of. If I'm trying to pinpoint it, it seems like I don't remember the last time I tried to peak on my eighth out of ten weeks in a row. I don't remember ever having that.

So, yeah, like I said, this is a year that's a bridge year for us on the PGA TOUR. So I want to keep playing the elevated events as well as the other events that I really love to play. So I knew that was going to happen this year, but it should be decided for me in the future, which would be a good thing.

Q. There's been a little chatter that maybe Phil hasn't been received as warmly as he has in years past. Did you detect that at all as far as the galleries?

JORDAN SPIETH: Not really. I've played with him three or four times on Sunday here, and I didn't feel a whole lot different. I would say only one or two of them counted because the COVID year is one. You can't really answer that question off of that.

But I didn't think so. I thought, once we both started to get it going, it became a really exciting group, and everybody was -- it felt very, very like eight, nine, ten years ago.