Jordan Spieth is ready to get past the 2017 Masters, whether he wins or not

After a meltdown last year in the final round, Jordan Spieth is ready to get through 2017

Jordan Spieth wants the Masters to be over. He might be the only golf fan alive who wishes such a thing, but who could blame him after what happened last year on the 12th hole of his final round?

Spieth, of course, hit two shots in the water on the par-3 12th, made a quadruple-bogey and went on to lose by three to Danny Willett. On Monday at the WGC-Match Play Championship, Spieth said he already has Augusta National on the mind.

“I’m thinking about it more and more as we get closer,” said Spieth. “That’s not abnormal. It’s been that way. The anticipation for the first major is different from the others because you wait so long for it. It’s an elongated anticipation that probably kicks in probably right at the start of the year.

“You’re thinking, you’re planning schedule, you’re planning anything you want to work on in your swing and anything you want to do in the gym. Everything is planning to peak for the Masters.”

But it’s not all sunshine, rainbows and green jackets this year for the two-time major winner. He knows he should actually have three majors and that he’ll have to stare down some wicked swing thoughts when he reaches the back nine for the first time this year.

“No matter what happens at this year’s Masters, whether I can grab the jacket back or I miss the cut or I finish 30th, it will be nice having this Masters go by,” said Spieth in reference to having to answer for last year’s mess for the last 12 months. 

“The Masters lives on for a year. It brings a non-golf audience into golf. And it will be nice once this year’s finished, from my point of view, to be brutally honest with you.

“It would be best if I could reclaim the jacket. But I believe that I’ll be back up there sooner or later, just the way that we play the golf course, the success we’ve had and the comfort level I have there. Whether it happens this year or not, but it will just be nice because that tournament, it’s a 365-day thing. There’s no other Masters.

“As far as just having all the questions be done, I’m pretty sure they will be.”

Rory McIlroy, who had his own meltdown at Augusta in 2011, said last week at the Arnold Palmer Invitational that he thinks Spieth will get over everything quite quickly once he gets back into the rhythm of competition at Augusta.

“I think once Jordan gets past the 12th hole in the first round this year, it will be over and done with,” said McIlroy. “Same thing with me: Once I got past the 10th hole in 2012 and the first round ... I was done. I looked over, I saw where I hit it, I had a bit of a laugh and then that was it. And it’s done, it’s over, you move forward and you don’t think about it again.”