Spieth hoping for another successful year ahead of Abu Dhabi HSBC Championship

Joy Chakravarty 19:55 20/01/2016
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  • Jordan Spieth.

    The American delivered that statement on the eve of his maiden Abu Dhabi HSBC Golf Championship appearance in the most matter-of-fact manner. With two majors already under his belt, Spieth has tasted blood at a very young age, and he is now desperate for more.

    “I want my name to go down in history for as many things as it can. That’s where my mind is. I’m less satisfied with what’s happened and more hungry to try and keep it going,” said the world No1 when asked if his preparations and expectations are any different now after a sensational 2015 saw him win the Masters and the US Open.

    “I think there are two ways of going forward with that. One is you can be satisfied and think about all the stuff you’ve done. Or two, you can look at what these guys who you’ve looked up to your whole life have accomplished, which is more than you have.

    “So look at Tiger, Phil… this is still our generation, Tiger, Phil, Rory, these guys have done more in the game of golf than I have, and I want to strive to get to what they have done.”

    For someone as young as Spieth, and as successful as him – a recent report estimated he was the highest earning golfer in the world in 2015 at $54 million – he shows remarkable poise to everything that is asked of him.

    Until you ask him about America’s chances at the 2016 Ryder Cup in Hazeltine.

    Suddenly, you sense a steely determination in his voice and in his gaze.

    “The Ryder Cup is a huge goal this year for me, and possibly at the very top of the list to try and get that win as a team,” said the man who dazzled in his debut at Gleneagles in 2014 but was part of a losing American team.

    “We are tired of hearing about changes that need to be made. We are tired of hearing about the past. And we’re ready to believe in kind of a younger, more hungry team going forward.

    “It looks like it’s going to be a younger average-age team than what we’ve had. There’s less scar tissue there. Rickie (Fowler) has been on I think two losing teams. I’ve been on one. You’ve got guys like Brooks (Koepka) and Justin (Thomas) and Patrick (Reed), a number of guys who are young, fiery, have good success in different team environments going back to their amateur and junior days.

    “The Ryder Cup is a different animal, I honestly believe that. But we have a lot of momentum at this very point in time right now.”

    Europe have won six of the last seven biennial contests, and Spieth has his own thoughts on how they should approach this year’s event.

    “We’re going to go in believing that it’s just a completely clean slate. That’s the strategy we are going to take,” said Spieth.

    “I think preparation is going to be important for us, to just kind of ease the transition and get a lot of the noise away.

    “If we go in believing that this is the inaugural Ryder Cup, this is a clean slate, we are ready to go and start a new trend, then I think we’ll be fine.”

    Spieth is making his Abu Dhabi debut, but comes off a dominating win in the PGA Tour’s Tournament of Champions, where he blitzed the field by eight shots two weeks ago.

    Spieth said it would be impossible to match his winning score of 30-under par in Kapalua, but he felt good about his chances in Abu Dhabi.

    “I feel great. I actually feel better about the way I’m striking my irons coming into this week than I did going into Hawaii,” he added.

    “Trying to maintain my putting and maintain my short game statistics, and the way I drove the ball. I’m not going to shoot 30-under this week; I don’t think that’s possible on this golf course. That was a dream week, everything came together and I scored incredibly well.

    “But if I can drive the ball in the places that I was driving it in Kapalua and keep it in the short grass here, I feel very confident about my chances.”

    Spieth is drawn with McIlroy and Rickie Fowler for the first two days and tees off at 7:40am Thursday.

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