Jordan Spieth immediately set his sights on improving on an “unreal” season after clinching the FedEx Cup title with victory in the Tour Championship on Sunday.
Spieth wrapped up his fifth win of the year after a closing 69 at East Lake left him nine under par – four shots clear of Henrik Stenson, Justin Rose and Danny Lee.
The first prize of $1.45 million and bonus of $10 million took Spieth’s earnings for the season to more than $22 million, and, it also lifted the 22-year-old above Jason Day and Rory McIlroy to the top of the world rankings.
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“This is incredible,” said Spieth, who won the Masters and US Open, missed out on a play-off for the Open by a single shot and was second in the PGA Championship. “This year is unreal. I don’t know how we will sit down and figure out how to improve on it, but we are going to try to do that.
“We did not have a great Playoffs but we put a lot of hard work into this week. I was out here early on Monday morning. We approached it as if it was a major and mentally stayed in it, even when I didn’t have my best ball striking and boy, that putter sure paid off.”
Spieth had missed the cut in the first two play-off events but was 13th in the BMW Championship to ensure he arrived in Atlanta in control of his own destiny. The top five of Day, Spieth, Stenson, Rickie Fowler and Bubba Watson were guaranteed to claim the FedEx Cup title by winning at East Lake.
“I had missed two cuts in a row and I had never done that,” Spieth added. “I lost the No1 ranking and I was watching Jason Day dominating golf. I got frustrated so I got to work, put my head down more than I had after the PGA, knowing we could still peak for this week and that’s what we did.”
Spieth said the mental toughness he had acquired over a rollercoaster season of remarkable highs and occasional lows could help him stay near the top of the golfing world for the next couple of decades.
Saying he had been bitterly disappointed at his failure to make the cut at the Players Championship in May following his victory in the Masters the previous month,
Spieth added: “It’s the greatest season I’ve ever had, obviously. But it’s one where I believe we took our game on course and off course to a level that I didn’t think would be possible at different times in my life.
“What this season did is it proved that we can maintain that high level throughout the year, even when a couple weeks get off, you can get it back quickly.
“I know that we can play at this level even when we don’t have our best stuff. And it gives me a lot of confidence going forward for the next 20 years. To know that if I remain healthy, that even when things are poor, we can get back to this level quickly.
“We bounced back so much better than we ever have in the past.”
Unsurprisingly, Spieth pinpointed his Masters victory in April as the highlight of his year.
“What am I most proud of this year? The Green Jacket,” Spieth said. “That was one that you grow up every single day going out to your practice green with your buddies saying, you have the last putt in the putting contest, it’s all tied up, this is to win the Masters.”
The emergence of a cluster of young talent led by Spieth, McIlroy, Day and Rickie Fowler also excites the world No1.
“I think golf is in as great a state as it’s been in a while,” Spieth said.
“I think that people just seem more excited, you can see and it just seems to be having a bit more of an impact this year.”
