Jordan Spieth: Confidence conquered demons in Masters opener

Jordan Spieth was sparkling in his return to the Masters, the site of some of his greatest victories, and his biggest failure. Here’s how he channeled all of his past experience to – once again – lead at Augusta National.

Jordan Spieth is nothing if not brutally honest. “Whether it’s tomorrow or it’s Saturday or Sunday, I’ll always have demons out here,” he said in the middle of his press conference after the first round of the Masters.

Then he added, “But I’ll always have ‑‑ I’ll always have a tremendous amount of confidence out here. Once you win here, you have an advantage over anybody who hasn’t won here.”

Somehow, Spieth always demonstrates an old golf brain in a young golf body. Wisdom beyond his years, or perhaps lessons learned from friends, coaches and family.

Now he finds himself on top of the leaderboard again at the Masters due to improved confidence and improved health.

To recap what his round was like, he started well, with two birdies at the par-5 second and the par-4 third. But he slipped up with a bogey on the 5^th and 7^th. He missed both greens with his second shots, and unfortunately, they have incredibly difficult putting surfaces. They fall into the unhittable and unholdable category unless a ball lands like it’s a feather.

"“If I look back on my highlights for the day, I’d say I had three of them. Two of them were bogeys and one was an eagle,” he said. “My bogey save that I made on No. 7 was a fantastic putt that kept, you know ‑‑ I saw a putt go in. It was a very difficult putt, and I could have dropped to over par, and it led to, you know, stepping on 8 tee feeling like, okay, regrouped, let’s grab three coming in.”"

Then at the 8^th, Spieth got extremely lucky, even if he didn’t know it; he couldn’t see the green from where he was. The ball got a lucky bounce off a mound which stopped it from rolling beyond the green. He ended up with an eagle chance, and that was when the putting gods tapped him on the shoulder and let him make the putt.

It was all pars, even through the 12^th.

Spieth made his move on the second nine, and never looked back

Starting at the 13^th, he made five birdies in a row, and had he been able to par the last hole, he would have finished the round at 7-under par. But it’s never easy with Spieth.

At the last hole, he duck-hooked a drive into the trees left of the fairway. The ball landed so deep, the only choice was to chip out sideways and backwards. From there, Spieth landed at the place where the fairway cut starts, about 250 yards from the front of the green.

He blasted a 3-wood up, hoping it would land in the bunker, and of course it didn’t. The ball landed in the patron area left of the green. A miraculous chip left him with about a foot for bogey and he finished at 6-under par. That second bogey that was key to staying in the lead.

(Photo by Patrick Smith/Getty Images) /

"“Eighteen was ‑‑ unfortunately, I’ve had to do some interesting things on 18 in my career here. It’s actually one of the more comfortable tee shots for me,” he said. “I just wasn’t very on with the driver today, and I was playing a fade and just kind of got it there early. But it was a beautiful chip shot. Probably couldn’t have gotten closer with a whole bucket of balls.”"

Spieth knows what he needs to do with his driver, and we will have to wait and see if he is able to. However, he loved his 3-wood all day.

"“I kind of need to pick one flight with the driver,” he said about the problems off the tee. “The hardest part for me is I keep on changing all these different flights on each hole, and at the speed that I’m swinging, it’s so tiny, the difference in one that goes right or left, that I think really picking a game plan, sticking to one shot would serve me well, unless I really need to go off of it.”"

Maybe he needs a Post-it note in his scorecard like Paula Creamer uses to remind her of key thoughts for the round.

Spieth confident, but not looking too far ahead yet

He critiqued his putting saying it was good but not amazingly good. He did add that his iron shots on the back nine were keys for him and he was able to convert inside 12 feet.

The most important thing for Spieth, long-term, is that he is feeling better. He had been taking allergy medication to alleviate breathing problems. Finally, in Houston, he stopped taking it and said he feels better.

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As far as holding the lead, he wants to if he can. And he found what he called a trigger in his putting stroke that has helped after the Dell Match Play. But he’s not giving anything away on that topic.

“Maybe if it propels to anything special, I’ll write about someday,” he quipped about the improvement in his putting. “I felt even better about my putting Sunday of last week than I did today. But if I can continue to feel a little bit better day by day, it would be fantastic.”

As for the remaining three rounds of the tournament, he said the Masters actually feels like six rounds because the weekend is so hard. Although he knows that he might not be leading after tomorrow, he would still like to be, because that’s one less stroke he has to make up on the rest of the field.

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“To go wire‑to‑wire in a tournament is a rare occurrence in any tournament, anywhere.

So, I imagine there will be plenty of times, if not from, you know, early on tomorrow that I don’t lead this tournament anymore,” he said. “Just things happen in this sport, and I’m going to try and control what I can control.”

Jordan Spieth has an early tee slot Friday, teeing off at 10:53 Eastern.

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