What would Jordan Spieth have said that Friday night after missing the cut at Torrey Pines if someone would’ve told him that he’d follow with two straight weeks as the 54-hole leader?
“I would have said you’re crazy, to be honest,” Spieth said. “I was not in a great head space.”
So, even after tying for third Sunday at the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am to fall short of ending his lengthy losing streak for the second straight week, Spieth was feeling even more encouraged than he did a week ago in Phoenix. He didn’t feel great over the ball for much of the weekend, especially on his final nine, yet he still managed to make five birdies on the day, including on each of his final two holes.
Unfortunately, he couldn’t find his groove early in the round and dug himself too big a hole to climb out of with two bogeys in his first five holes. He also made a sloppy bogey at No. 14, one of the toughest par-5s on Tour, for the second straight day.
“I’m legitimately going around with maybe my B-game, and I know that stepping on the first tee,” Spieth said. “And being in the lead by two, you can look at it both ways. It’s pretty awesome that I feel that I’m still significantly far off of where I want to be and am able to be leading the tournament through 54. But at the same time, it’s very difficult to go out knowing that you don’t have your best stuff and to go out there with my own expectation that I’m going to win today.
“So, that’s kind of the battle going into the day and I just hope that I continue to progress like this to where I can stand on that first tee as confident as I historically have been and where everything’s at to where I can go out and play boring golf and just hit a bunch of greens and make it a really easy 18 holes to win a golf tournament.”
Spieth now heads down to Los Angeles for next week’s Genesis Invitational at Riviera, arguably Spieth’s favorite course in the world but also a venue that will attract a much tougher field than the ones he’s faced the past two weeks.