JOHN DEERE CLASSIC

July 4, 2024

Jordan Spieth

TPC Deere Run

Quick Quotes

Q. Jordan, your first competitive round here at TPC Deere Run in nine years. You said you're quite a different player than you were back here in 2015. How did that influence how you approached the course today?

JORDAN SPIETH: Well, we dodged the rain and just a very gettable golf course, and I got off to a poor start. I was 1-over through 5, so the first five, last six holes, playing that 11 stretch of 2-over, you can't do that here. You lose ground as far as staying with the rest of the field.

But the years I won I opened with 70 and 71 so I improved on that, but, yeah, overall, obviously I was looking to get a few more. Looked like I had it going for a little; unfortunately couldn't get them to drop.

Q. You describe your season sometimes as frustrating. Certainly a test of your patience. What was the biggest test out there for you today?

JORDAN SPIETH: I think just I played the hole and I would be like, man, been playing a lot of different golf courses and obviously (indiscernible) because you can just land it and stick it there. Felt like I was playing pretty safe to start the round. Then I started to attack a little bit more.

I think I just got a little bit behind at the start. So tomorrow we got some 15- to 20-mile-an-hour winds, so it's a good thing for me I think to try to (indiscernible.)

Q. You mentioned that tough start. How do you turn things around to get where you are?

JORDAN SPIETH: I hit a nice 8-iron into 15. I felt like I played the -- the hardest holes on the course I played well today and the easy ones I played poorly.

So I've been working on some things last week or so that are very difficult for me to do and it was my first round to trust it on, so I hit some shots that I don't normally hit.

But I figured that would happen off kind of the work that I put in last week, so hopefully just gets better each day.

Q. Thoughts what you may have to shoot tomorrow to get on the leaderboard?

JORDAN SPIETH: Just hard to tell. The course is soft but the wind will be up, so putting will be challenging tomorrow being in the afternoon because bentgrass greens get beat up and putting in the wind is hard.

So I think something around 4-, 5-under keeps me in the tournament tomorrow. It'll be harder to do that tomorrow than today.

Q. Can you build on the fact you had slow starts in two wins?

JORDAN SPIETH: Yeah, I finished, whatever, 19- and 20-under after starting worse than today. Done it before, so I can do it again.

But it's going to be harder than if I opened up with a low round just as it was those years.

Q. Were you morning, afternoon?

JORDAN SPIETH: I think I've been morning the other two years as well. I know for sure one of the times but I don't remember the other.

Q. Were you surprised by any of the support you got out there?

JORDAN SPIETH: It was great. We started to have -- from going off so early, there were quite a few people out there walking our front nine, the back nine. As we made the turn, they swelled up. This tournament never disappoints with that.

4th the July too, so nice time to get out to have a hotdog and beer and be outside. Wasn't super surprised. No, it was great.

Q. Were they rooting for you harder than Zach?

JORDAN SPIETH: I don't think so. There was a lot more reason to cheer for Zach's round.