THOUSAND OAKS, Calif. – Everything's bigger in Texas – except Jordan Spieth's noggin.
The Lone Star megastar has every reason to stick out his chest, raise his head to the sky and boast about his fantastic feats, especially when he knows he took the world by storm in 2013 as a teen-ager. A storm, mind you, that included nearly $4 million in earnings, his first PGA Tour win (that came with a John Deere tractor, no less, and an invitation to next year's Masters), nine top-10s, PGA Tour rookie of the year honors and becoming the youngest U.S. player in the history of the Presidents Cup.
And Spieth, who became the youngest winner on Tour since 1931, ends the year with a place in the field for Tiger Woods' Northwestern Mutual World Challenge that starts Thursday at Sherwood Country Club in the foothills of the Santa Monica Mountains, where last-place money is $100,000.
Yet Spieth remains grounded and brags as often as he has four-putt, knowing last year at this time he was taking his finals at the University of Texas. That he had crashed out of the second stage of Q School a year ago and had to start the season with no status on the PGA Tour. That he was ranked No. 810 after he missed the cut in his first Tour event as a professional.
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"It's great to look back at what happened to be in this scenario and learn from the positives," said Spieth, now 20 and ranked No. 22 in the world. "But all in all, I think the way to have success (in 2014) is to not dwell too much on the past and focus on the best players in the world that I'm playing against now week-in and week-out.
" … Each year I think going back to when I was 12 years old, I've improved. My dad always, a big thing for him was to say just try to look back at each month and see if you got a little better each month at something."
Spieth also learned there's a fine line between first and last, that a year changes at the end of a hole-out. Like the hole-in-one he had in Puerto Rico that led to a top-10 that got him into the tournament the following week in Tampa, where he had a hole-out on the 71st hole for another top-10. And there was the bunker shot he made on the 72nd hole in the John Deere that got him into a playoff he would go on to win.
"It was funny looking back and noticing how many times I holed out where it was really important," Spieth said. "A lot of it required luck, so sometimes it's better to be lucky."
In a meeting with his instructor Cameron McCormick to look back on 2013 and forward to 2014, Spieth discovered after a check on his stats that he needs to improve on his long iron play and short game around the greens. Further, Spieth wants to wash the bad taste out of his mouth that was left behind the result of his play in the majors, where he missed the cut in the U.S. Open and PGA Championship and finished in a tie for 44th at the British Open.
"Now I'm able to be in all four of them and pick my schedule leading up to them to have the best success I can there versus not even knowing I was going to be in a couple of them until one of them a day before," Spieth said. "All in all, I'll be well-rested with a better game plan this year for the majors, and that is going to be a big focus on trying to play all four weekends and really getting competitive in them and just try to see what it feels like."
All in all, Spieth would rather look ahead than behind.
"I think maybe later in life I'll look back at the year more than I am right now," the Dallas resident said. "I think that what I did throughout last season was adjust goals and set new goals that would be based on the tournaments I was getting into, and I think that that just needs to continue. I don't think that a break for a couple months needs to stop any momentum or the way I was thinking. So I'm just going to try to adjust my goals and see what happens the first half of the year and see what goes from there."
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