Five things we learned from Jordan Spieth’s press conference

Jordan Spieth’s press conference had every seat full and people lining up outside the door, desperately trying to catch a snippet from the man of the moment. Here are the biggest five things to come out of it…

1. Jordan Spieth LOVES St Andrews

“To win here would be amazing. It would be something I’d never forget. I’ve watched The Open Championships here at St Andrews, and I don’t think there’s anything more special in golf than playing an Open Championship at the Home of Golf. I think here and Augusta National are my two favourite places in the world.

“All in all, I’m really excited. It would mean the world to me to try and win this championship and to do it here would be even more special.”

2. He’s been learning the course on a simulator

“I have a full swing golf simulator at my house and I was playing with some buddies and I figured why not play the Old Course since we’re heading there. It was valuable. It was cool to see some of the start lines, but it’s still not the same as being here and preparing. You get out here and it could change very much depending on the wind. The course was lot easier with 68 degrees and no breeze coming out of the air-conditioner in that room.”

3. He doesn’t feel intimidated

“I don’t feel intimidated by anybody. If the name of Rory McIlroy, Dustin Johnson, Bubba Watson, whoever it is, is up at the top of the leaderboard, I would love and be embracing the challenge to knock them off.

I don’t look at this as trying to win three in a row; I look at this as trying to win The Open Championship at a very special place.”

4. But he won’t be getting much sleep

“I wasn’t sure how I’d be able to handle the Masters this year, leading all four rounds and being able to close it out. You don’t sleep well on the lead in a Major, and so to do it for a few days and still continue to play the best golf I’ve ever played and putt the best I’ve ever putted, that gave me a lot of confidence. That tournament right there really established, hey, we can do this going forward in each one if we get a chance. We’ve done it before, why can’t we do it again?

5. His strategy is ‘aim small, miss small’

“The more pressure you feel in the heat of the moment, the smaller of a target you should pick, because your misses are going to be smaller. It’s easy for your mind to just see a fairway and think ‘how can I just hit this fairway?’, versus ‘let’s stripe a drive right at the left branch on that tree’. Chances are, if our swing is where we want it to be, we won’t miss that mark by much. When I get in those positions, that’s what comes into my mind: how can I zero in even more and even more and more? It’s worked out tremendously.”

How do you rate Jordan Spieth’s chances this week?