MASTERS PLAN
To Spieth, SHO invaluable preparation for the big one that got away last year
AUSTIN — Jordan Spieth was reared in North Texas and educated for a year in the Hill Country, but one of the world’s top golfers always will have a soft spot for Houston. In part because the Shell Houston Open feeds into the game’s sweetest spot: Augusta National Golf Club in Augusta, Ga.
“I love playing the week before the Masters,” Spieth said, in anticipation of playing the Houston Open starting Thursday. “The reason being — it’s worked.”
Indeed it has, considering Spieth has played the Golf Club of Houston near Humble every time before competing in the Masters, and he has finished tied for second, first and tied for second in the game’s most celebrated event on American soil.
“I’ve missed the cut in Houston and almost won the Masters, and I’ve almost won in Houston and then did win the Masters,” said Spieth, who earned a green jacket with a Masters victory in 2015. “The fact that I’m playing the week before is very important to me. In Houston, the golf course is set up very similar to Augusta. They have very similar green complexes and very similar grass around the greens.”
Playing under pressure
There’s also one more reason Spieth gave, and one not every elite golfer agrees with, in playing the week before the Masters.
“The fact that you can hit shots under pressure, and in a tournament, is useful for me,” he said.
While Phil Mickelson has played Houston regularly and won the event in 2011, most notably Tiger Woods has never played Houston in its decade as lead-in to the Masters.
Spieth, 23, had even more reason to keep his game sharp following his exit of the World Golf Championships in Austin on Friday, prior to the weekend competition among the event’s top 16 in match play.
Japan’s Hideto Tanihara upset Spieth, the world’s No. 6 golfer, in the opening round of group play on Wednesday. Spieth then rebounded with a victory on Thursday over Japan’s Yuta Ikeda before halving his match with Ryan Moore and exiting Austin after Tanihara defeated Ikeda to advance out of group play.
“We’ve got a plan in place to try and get the right amount of practice and rest, which is always important to peak at the Masters, and then at all the majors thereafter,” said Spieth, when asked what he’d do with his time this weekend in lieu of match play.
Spieth, a Dallas native, was under pressure last week to perform in his second hometown of Austin, where he led the Texas Longhorns to a national title five years ago as a freshman in his lone season of college competition. But it will be nothing like the pressure he’ll face when he finally arrives in Augusta next week.
Last year Spieth blew a five-shot lead on the back nine of the Masters, a collapse he has had to deal with since, mostly in fielding questions about the historic free-fall at the PGA Tour stops on his path back to Augusta.
“No matter what happens at this year’s Masters, whether I can grab the jacket back or I miss the cut or finish 30th, it will be nice having this year’s Masters go by,” Spieth said. “The Masters lives on for a year, and it brings a non-golf audience into golf. It will be nice once this year’s is finished, from my point of view, to be brutally honest.”
Banishing the demons
Rory McIlroy, the world’s No. 2 golfer, knows Spieth’s pain. McIlroy led the Masters after three rounds in 2011, only to shoot a final round of 80 and tie for 15th that year.
“If he doesn’t banish those demons or win this year, the questions will always still be there,” McIlroy said. “I still get questions about the back nine at Augusta in 2011. It’s just something you have to deal with. It’s not going to go away — it’s there and it always will be.
“But he can console himself by opening his wardrobe and seeing a (green jacket) hanging there. So that’s a little bit different.”
McIlroy hasn’t won a Masters, although he won the U.S. Open in 2011, the British Open in 2014 and two PGA Championships in 2012 and 2014. Spieth also won the U.S. Open the same year he won the Masters (2015).
As for how Spieth has fared in Houston the past three years? He didn’t make the cut in 2014, he tied for second in a playoff following a three-way tie in 2015 (just prior to winning the Masters), and a year ago he tied for 13th prior to catching a plane to Georgia with the notion of repeating his Masters glory.
“I’m ready for a different news story,” Spieth said of fielding so many questions about last year’s epic fade in Augusta.
“I hope to create my own positive one this year.”