Blazer of glory: Spieth looking for second coat
At a place with more ceremonies than a Greek wedding
it’s slightly anticlimactic that returning the most iconic symbol of
major championship success is as unceremonial as hanging up a coat.
The coveted green jacket that golfers grow up wanting to win has never been far from the last 12 months. He’s traveled with it, he’s glanced at it, daily,
in his closet, he’s even entertained friends and grilled with it on.
But Spieth’s run as Masters champion ends this week and with that
passing goes the green jacket, which can now be worn only when he is on
property at Augusta National unless he becomes the first player since in 2002 to win back-to-back Masters.
Two weeks ago as he prepared to travel to the WGC-Dell Match Play, that reality sank in for Spieth.
“When I packed it to go down to Austin [Texas], I was like, wow,
there's a possibility that I don't have this back at my house anymore
when I was leaving home,” said Spieth, who has shown a refreshing amount
of sentimentality in his young career. “It kind of fired me up a little
bit. Just the jacket itself provides a little motivation, which is cool
but at the same time, it's not easy.”
It’s not easy parting with his green jacket and it won’t be easy
bringing it back home to Dallas, not if the oddsmakers are to be
trusted.
who unseated Spieth atop the Official World Golf Ranking two weeks ago, is the favorite, which Spieth said was fine by him.
Inasmuch as a defending champion who blitzed Augusta National with an
18-under total for a wire-to-wire victory last spring can, Spieth is
happy to be under the proverbial radar.
Spieth has, after all, not been his dominant self the past few months after opening his year.
Since Maui, his best Tour finish is a tie for ninth at the Match Play. After making an early run last Sunday at the that included four birdies in his first five holes, he faded into a tie for 13th place.
Against that backdrop Spieth begins his title defense with something
less than his best stuff to those watching from outside the green
punchbowl.
Just don’t tell the 22-year-old that.
“We know we're capable of playing this place. We have proven it to
ourselves the last two years. So the focus is on this week, and we feel
as confident as probably ever leading into at least on Tuesday,” Spieth
said. “So my game actually feels better right now than I think it did
last year on Tuesday.”
The record would suggest that Spieth is at least on par with his performances through the first six months of last season.
Heading down Magnolia Lane last year he had won once, a playoff victory at the and had just one missed cut, the same as this year.
Statistically, he is 62nd in driving distance this year (55th at this
point last year), 79th in driving accuracy (101st in 2015) and fourth
in birdie average (sixth).
Beyond the nuts and bolts of his season it’s the unquantifiable
elements of Spieth’s game that seem to give him confidence going into
this week’s event.
After winning the first two majors last year and coming within a
stroke of adding the claret jug to his growing Grand Slam collection,
Spieth has largely quieted the outside noise that comes with such
success and focused his energies on the inside voices.
“It's more the internal stuff that is trickier for me,” he said. “The
only way it affects my golf is if I'm on the course and I feel like I'm
giving strokes away and, therefore, I make an aggressive play that's
unnecessary.”
Spieth also has history on his side.
Despite having played the Masters just twice he’s appeared to have
the moves of a savvy veteran, avoiding the pitfalls both on and off the
golf course the last two years and not allowing the enormity of the
event to overcome him.
For Spieth, the familiarity is the byproduct of his early success when he finished runner-up to in 2014.
“I think I was lucky that the first try, I wasn't trying as hard, and
I think now I can just go back to the past couple years and draw off of
that,” he said.
It’s that confidence, born from on-the-job experience, that helped
temper his green jacket’s return to Augusta National this week, and why
despite a chorus of concern over his recent form the moment was far from
melancholy.
“I didn't take it for granted whatsoever,” Spieth said. “I think that
I could have taken advantage of having it in my possession more than I
did. But you learn and next time I'll do a little bit better.”
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