Jordan Spieth better so far than Tiger was in the '97 Masters

AUGUSTA, Ga. – "Morning!" blared Jordan Spieth as he walked toward his tee shot on the 14th hole at Augusta National.

A rules official nodded. It wasn't morning. It was nearly 2 p.m. It didn't matter. It was whatever time Mr. Spieth said it was.

On this particular "morning," the 21-year-old Dallas native was on his way to an historic feat not even Tiger Woods has matched: the best 36-hole score in Masters history. That record had stood for 39 years, dating back to Raymond Floyd in 1976. Woods' four-round score of 18-under was unthinkable when he won here at age 21 in 1997. Spieth would finish his Friday at 14-under at the same age, halfway through the same event on the same course.

But first he had to hit his shot on 14 from the pine needles, under a low tree branch, and onto a sloping green.

"If I hit it real nice …" he said, almost coaxing the white orb.

He hit it real nice, thrashing the ball out of the needles, around the tree limb, and onto the 14th green. Easy as that.

"It was like he had no idea all these people were around," said Susan Kuczum, a patron from Pennsylvania, as Spieth walked away.

You could feel history collecting here on Friday with every patron who ambled over from some other grouping to watch Spieth. The usual chatter in Amen Corner died to a silence when he putted on 12. The mass of caps and hats edged upward on the 13th fairway as people rose to their tiptoes to see him. The walkway on 14 actually spilled past the ropeline, so that people were standing on the fairway, watching Spieth putt the prior hole. And by 16, Spieth was basking in a standing ovation. This wasn't Sunday on 18. This was Friday on 16.

Friday "morning."

"What is going on here?" exclaimed one fan after one of Spieth's 15 birdies in two days.

Well, what's going on is a young star's immaculate blend of boldness and wits. He wants to go for every pin, even with a huge lead, but he's smart enough, even at age 21, to know when to tone it down. On 15, he desperately wanted to reach the par 5 in two shots, thinking he could unsheathe his beloved hybrid and go for it. But the wind had switched directions a hole before, and he allowed his caddie to talk him down. Spieth played it safe and made par.

"The nature of Jordan is he's a pretty aggressive person," said his caddie, Michael Greller. "So we try to play aggressive shots to conservative spots."

One strategy Spieth used brilliantly was to attack the back of the greens, which was often counterintuitive because it left him downhill putts to tricky pins. There was more than one occasion when Spieth found himself looking down at holes when his playing partners were looking up. It didn't hurt him; quite the contrary. "The only way to get it onto the correct tier," he said, "was to be aggressive."

That kind of beyond-his-years wisdom stood in some contrast to what Woods said Thursday after his first round when he said he was "fooled" by the pace of the greens. Friday, Spieth said he relied on legend Ben Crenshaw's tutelage and his caddie's reads to find the proper roll and not second-guess it. He said if not for slight misreads on 9 and 18, he would have been 16-under.

Keep in mind, Spieth nearly won this tournament last year. He was the leader after 54 holes. So it's not like he's stumbled into a hot start this week. He's very comfortable on this course, and he has been dialed in during every round he's played. Greller said the pair prepared for the greens by working with Crenshaw and by practicing the two toughest putts on each green. By comparison, they figured, the rest of the lines should be easier. It's certainly looked that way.

Without taking anything away from Spieth's historic performance, there might be a benefit to playing this event without much memory. Woods won here at 21, and Seve Ballesteros did it at 23. There could be something to playing this hallowed course without trying to compete against years of your former self. What may have worked years before doesn't always work again.

But everything is working for Spieth. He has been careful in the right moments and brave at the right times. If he merely shoots par for the weekend, someone at the top of the leaderboard – Spieth holds a five-stroke lead over Charley Hoffman – will have to be almost perfect to catch him. He has made a weekend that's usually reserved for big names into a weekend that will be reserved for him. Many of those big names will be teeing off in the morning.

Spieth will chase daylight and destiny in the afternoon.