If Jordan Spieth was the least bit nervous when he began his quest for the Open Championship on Thursday, it certainly did not show.
Spieth, playing with Dustin Johnson and Hideki Matsuyama, got off to a roaring start on the Old Course at St. Andrews. He birdied the first two holes out of the box then added three more in a row starting at the fifth. He was in total control of his game and his putter was looking like it did last week when he won the John Deere.
He shot 31 on that outward nine then put it into full grind coming home.
“I was able to take advantage of the front nine,” he said after turning in a five-under par 67, just two back of Johnson’s pace-setting 65. “Then, just trying to hang on,” he said of the inward nine. “We just tried to hang in there. Even par was a good score,” he added.
He got that even par 36 with an improbable birdie putt at the 18th, a three-foot breaker from 16 feet that found its way to the bottom of the cup.
It made up for the bogey his suffered at the difficult Road Hole. His approach found the dreaded Road Hole bunker but he was able to blast his third just eight feet away. But he missed the bid for par. It was one of two bogeys he made on the back. The other came at the par four 13th when his tee shot found one of the penal pot bunkers and he was forced to hit out sideways.
“Just getting around,” is how he described his day, his first trip around the Old Course as a professional.
