FEDEX ST. JUDE CHAMPIONSHIP

August 10, 2023

Jordan Spieth

TPC Southwind

Quick Quotes

Q. Your game looked pretty fresh. What did you work on that maybe translated to the golf course?

JORDAN SPIETH: Quite a bit of putting. I played really well at the British. Tee to green, I played well enough to win. I didn't feel like I missed many of my lines. I just couldn't quite get the matching of the line and speed on the greens.

Now we come to slopey Bermuda and very fast slopey Bermuda where I feel a little more comfortable picking lines and kind of feeding the ball in using gravity. I think that helped, along with quite a bit of work as best I could in Texas right now, which is really from the hours of 7:00 a.m. to noon before it's almost unbearable.

Just tightened some things up. I tried to play a lot just to shoot scores. I had kind of taken off playing a bunch, and I think that that helped a bit in the last couple weeks.

Q. It's also wet out there. Anything adjust in how you wanted to play this golf course because of how much water we got the last couple days?

JORDAN SPIETH: It certainly played longer. I hit some clubs into holes I've never hit here, even hitting the fairway off the tee.

Yeah, it was kind of -- we're maybe backing off a few pins that sometimes if you hit the fairway you look to attack, and then just wait for kind of the wedge holes.

But the pivotal holes where you get wedge in your hand, if you hit a nice drive, you're looking to attack. I did hit the fairways on those holes, and that was important. Then the really hard ones, you're just trying to get it on the surface and tap in for par.

Q. You just were saying that you played a lot at home to shoot some scores. What kind of scores, and what kind of confidence do you get from shooting those scores? What are you looking for?

JORDAN SPIETH: Yeah, pretty good. It started to get better and better. I played a round with Tom Kim, I played a round with Scottie. We had a few other games with some other guys that aren't pros. Just tried to kind of get some competition.

I did that a ton in the spring, and then when I had kind of my wrist thing, I was trying to rest.

I just found that I wasn't playing a ton in that break between U.S. Open and Scottish Open, and so I just got to the Scottish, and I felt like things were good, but I just wasn't scoring, so it was pretty frustrating.

Some of that just has to do with knocking putts in, and some of it has to do with actually getting out there and not just being on a driving range or a putting green.

I felt like the more I'm playing at home and not having to work on a ton of stuff, the better it comes out to the course here.

Q. Any scores you want to report that were exceptional?

JORDAN SPIETH: I played Maridoe a few times, which is diabolically difficult, so it's not like I was going out necessarily having to shoot 8- or 9-under, it was more relative to the course. I had a couple nice rounds out there.

Yeah, 5-, 6-unders a couple times, 5s, 6s, 7s, had a couple rounds around -- one or two around even or 2-under, but those were earlier. But no, nothing like newsworthy.

Q. Does that build confidence, though?

JORDAN SPIETH: Yeah, I mean, you can be playing really well and go home and just like randomly have a couple bad rounds playing in a game or something, but for the most part, it's a pretty good gauge on form.

On the driving range if I miss a shot five yards right of the pin that I'm trying not to go right of, I just hit another ball. But on the course you're in trouble.

So getting in competition with some high-level players is something I've always tried to do at home. This isn't new; I just hadn't done a ton of it in the last month or so. Cameron was like, look, playing Trump, seeing me, I'm here these days, will work a couple days, but go out and find some games and play, even if you have to leave town, and fortunately I was able to stay in town and do that.

Q. How did you do financially in those games?

JORDAN SPIETH: Just fine. Yeah, just fine.

Q. On putting, when you have a round like this and have a nice score, where do you put value over some of the eight-, ten footers for par over some of your birdie putts?

JORDAN SPIETH: Yeah, I didn't feel like I was stepping into any putt thinking like par or birdie and thinking it was different from the other, which is really a good sign.

I don't want to feel like I have to make the par putts and then you don't on the birdie. I want them to all feel the same. They all felt like, I'm going to do what I can; I'm going to pick my line and speed and put the stroke, and I'm going to do everything in my power, and if it goes in, great. If it doesn't, so be it.

My stroke is in a good spot, it's just a matter of doing enough work on the practice green there of performance putting where you start to see them drop in matching the right line and speed.

Obviously 17 was a really nice one. I thought 12 I got kind of a tough break and made a really nice par putt maybe from about 10 feet. Then 17 made a nice one, as well.

They feel better than the birdie putts. They really do. But as I went into them, it was, I'm just going to try to control what I can control.

Q. This probably goes to what you just said about scores relative to the golf course, but I think the 63 today ties for your lowest round of the year. Does it feel like the best round of the year or among the best rounds of the year?

JORDAN SPIETH: I was telling Michael maybe sometime on the back nine, I was like, I feel good, but it doesn't quite feel as tight as some of the days in the last week or so ball-striking. Then all of a sudden I ended up hitting a good one on 15 and then chipping in on 16, and all of a sudden, now it's three strokes better, so it's like, how can you not -- yeah, I think it was solid, but I will say that I was using the entire -- I used the heel of the driver a lot today, and I don't want to keep doing it. I've been driving the ball really, really nicely and everything kind of goes from there. If I feel really confident stepping into a driver, getting in front of some shots and hitting some nice ones, that normally feeds to the rest of the bag, so I'd like to improve a bit on just where -- I hit some fairways, but I hit some pretty far off the heel and then I toed one on 17. Just kind of getting some contact on the middle of the face again.

Q. You and Justin were in the same spot on 16 there. Were you always going to play it that way, or did you maybe change after how he hit his?

JORDAN SPIETH: No, even with lift, clean and place, I was able to put it on a downgrain spot, but with the way that green is, I hit that shot three or four times to that pin on Tuesday, and obviously different conditioned - it was more wet now - but with how steep it was and how grainy it was where it was going to land, it didn't play much different.

I was never thinking about going high on that just because I think the closest I could get if I played it the way I wanted to was like 10 feet, and with the one I was hitting, I thought a bad shot, if I committed to hitting it hard enough, would be about 15 long.

Q. The second it made it over that ridge, your body language changed a bit.

JORDAN SPIETH: Yeah, then I looked to see if it was right on line, and then as it was kind of moving in, it was cool, yeah. It's cool when you sit there and you're like, I know this is a shot I don't want to have but I could very much have, and it's not a great spot, so let me just go ahead and see -- you hit the exact shot to the exact pin and then you find -- it's a really cool feeling. It was a neat shot.

Q. Did you get a chance to see any of the St. Jude kids earlier in the week?

JORDAN SPIETH: Yeah, I did an event with Jon Rahm at one of the FedEx hangars and there were a couple of -- I think they call them purple heart St. Jude recipients, that kind of have a connection to FedEx, too, so a couple of the kids there.

My wife went with Laura Moses who runs the foundation with her and works with me. They went to St. Jude yesterday.

I went a few years ago but I didn't go to the hospital this year but was hearing all about it.

Q. Did you get a chance to get in the pool this week?

JORDAN SPIETH: The pool? Yeah, we put our temporary pool -- yeah, I have.

Q. Do you have any pictures?

JORDAN SPIETH: Yeah.

Q. Any you can share?

JORDAN SPIETH: I could show you. I'm not going to send them to you. Not the most flattering.

Q. This excerpt from this book about Phil Mickelson is the talk of the golf world. What was the talk in the locker room about it?

JORDAN SPIETH: I mean, I would say people were maybe a bit surprised at the amount of -- I haven't really seen a whole lot on it. I just saw what some people sent me and stuff, and it was so quick this morning that even if I wanted to comment, I don't think it's a good idea.