Q. I imagine it's bittersweet, your best ever finish here at the Nelson, at the same time you had a chip to force a playoff and you hit a good one that could have gone in for eagle on the final hole.
JORDAN SPIETH: I hit just a shot that you don't practice into the green and I actually thought I just stuck it and I don't know if I could have a thousand balls and hit it where I hit it.
But I still had a chance, K.H. made a great par save on 17 and then went and hit the green in two on 18 and 2-putted. He shot 8- or 9-under. We had it blowing 15 to 18 our last 10 or 11 holes, so that score this afternoon, especially the last closing stretch of holes is just a phenomenal score. I think when the day started I would have wanted to be at, I think I would have wanted to be at 25-under standing on 18 tee. So I had a chance to do that with that putt on 17 and just kind of, it was just pumping into and it just dove across the hole.
But it was a good week, good momentum into next week, last two starts being a win and a second, but this one will sting just a little bit just looking back on the day.
Q. Is there any one shot that you would like to have over?
JORDAN SPIETH: Well I look back on 10, had a pretty good look at birdie and just got a little too aggressive and hit it through the first break and then I kind of got in my own head in the wind there on the second one and missed about a 3- or 4-footer which to go from thinking I was going to make birdie to making bogey, I mean that's obviously a big swing.
But I played the holes from there exactly how they were supposed to be played. Grabbed three more birdies and it just wasn't quite good enough.
Q. Your best finish here for your event hometown event. Obviously you had some putts that didn't go your way, 10, then again on 12 and even 17. Your thoughts on what happened on those holes?
JORDAN SPIETH: Yeah, 10 was a double breaker and it was like my fifth one of the day, it just, they made up for the bullpens the last few days and put a lot on some crowns to where if you get kind of on the side -- I hit a couple that may have broken off earlier in the day, so that one it was straight into the wind so I just hit it through the original break and the wind kind of caught it and dove it off the right side of the hole.
So I figured the next one would be right center, but I was pretty uncomfortable on it given it's supposed to break right but the wind's pumping off the right. Seems easy but from there like I just kind of got a little in my own head on the wind there and it just kind of slid off to the right and missed it. So that was tough.
12 was a great putt, right where I wanted to with the right speed, just off by four inches on the read.
Then 17 was similar to kind of 11, it was going to break left and then it was going to straighten out, so if I hit it too firm it was actually going to miss right. And with the wind blowing as hard as it was I just tried to judge the right speed and I looked up and it was, it had already snapped off quite a bit to the left. So certainly one that I would like to hit over again and hit firmer, but it was tough, it was tough putting in the breeze out here with some of the pins that they put.
Q. (No Microphone.)
JORDAN SPIETH: I think it's easier to press here and get away with it because there's so many holes where if you miss it on the short side sometimes it actually comes next to the hole. You don't get into as much trouble around the greens here as you do in the previous two venues.
So it's kind of one when it's going to be 25- or 26-under, which it probably will be every year, you can just go out and start firing at stuff and that attitude is okay. But probably got to dial that back a little bit for next week.
Q. At the Texas Open in 2021, the one you won, you told us you were in the process of trying to find the swing of your youth. Where are you on that path?
JORDAN SPIETH: Closer than I was then. I'm striking it better, consistently. I feel like I've got every shot.
17 today was just an awful number for me and it's a shot that hitting like a chippy draw was just not in my repertoire for a long time. And I haven't wanted to hit it under pressure either, even last year. So today I wanted to kind of hood a pitching wedge and I said, You know, I'm going to trust this, I'm going to learn from this shot and I'm going to take seven, eight yards and draw a 9-iron without it crossing over left of the pin. That's just a shot that I just haven't had and I just hit maybe my best shot of the day into there.
So it's holes like that -- and then into 18 I hit a 3-wood and tried to hit a 30-yard high slice into the green because I couldn't get a hybrid there, but 3-wood's over the green.
So it's like being able to kind of sit here and play these back-to-back crazy shots and feel comfortable doing so means it's really close. But it's really, really close on the range and normally that starts to, everything just inches a little bit closer.
So I mentioned it down there, I don't feel like I have to go change much, I just feel like I'm doing the right things. My rehearsal is not exactly what I'm trying to do, but it gets me closer to where I want to be.
Q. What are maybe two specific things that you saw out of your self this week that you're glad to take to Tulsa?
JORDAN SPIETH: I thought I made some really nice 5-foot sliders down the stretch. I had one after I blew one by five or six feet on 14, that's a putt that is really nerve wracking because it's a must make and you also you don't want to 3-putt. And it was a little double breaker too and I just, I cruised it right in the middle.
And then made a decent 3-, 4-footer on 15.
And then 16 I had one that broke about a cup from six or seven feet there.
So those putts are really nice to make, those are ones that I just kind of I put good fluid stroke, more judging line and speed, I was more outwardly focused than stroke focused. So that's really important under pressure as I look into a major.
Q. People are going to see that you missed another short putt and think you're still struggling there. Why do you feel differently about it?
JORDAN SPIETH: Because I -- well I just mentioned it. It was, I just got in my own head about the wind on that one. I also missed a three and a half footer on 7 three days ago. So sometimes it's tough, sometimes we miss those. Like I made 98 of them this week and you miss two of them.
But the one on 10 today was, I was pretty confident stroking the ball today. I was gaining, I probably gained strokes on the field on the greens and really that's what I'm looking to try and do each and every round. That one I just, the wind blew it off the right side of the hole, so I decided to play it right center and it and then the wind stopped and the grain took it over to the right. It's just tricky little pins.
So we'll get on greens next week that remind me a lot of Colonial, bent grass, which is gradual slope where you don't have a lot of tricks, which I think will be nice and I gained a lot of confidence on the greens this week.
Q. I know you talk a lot about playing at home this week, but a moment like walking off 18 and kind of getting a standing ovation from the home crowd, how special is it to have moments like that or any other moment throughout the week like that?
JORDAN SPIETH: Yeah, this event's always been like that. Today was the best showing of the bunch. I thought yesterday might be, but today was like, it was really special.
At one point I looked up, I don't even remember what hole it was, maybe like 6 or something and I think I looked over to the right side and it was like there's just a sea of people. And that's what I remember from the early weekends of 2010, 2011 Byron and stuff like that.
So it was really cool to see, I love playing at home, I would love to win it some day. I had a good chance here, I don't think I ever really had the lead on my own, I think I had a putt to maybe get the lead on my own on 10. But it would be nice to close one out.
But, again, shot 5-under, wasn't playing easy today and a guy went out and shot 8-under right in front of us. So sometimes that happens.
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