Jordan Spieth moves on from Masters meltdown

Jordan Spieth understands his meltdown at the end of the Masters will follow him. And three weeks later, Spieth’s not quite ready to say he’s over letting a five-shot lead in the final round morph into that awkward ceremony in the Butler Cabin that ended with him slipping the green jacket on Danny Willett following an ugly and very public collapse.

Still, let’s not get carried away.

“I’m not taking it very hard,” Spieth said Tuesday in his first comments since the Masters.

He spoke while attending a FedEx event in suburban Pittsburgh ahead of a practice round today at Oakmont, where he will try to defend his U.S. Open title next month. He’ll play in his first event since the Masters next week at the Players Championship.

“I’ve got ladies at the grocery stores putting their hand on me and going, ‘Really praying for you; how are you doing?’ I’m like, ‘My dog didn’t die. I’ll be OK. I’ll survive.’ It happens.”

It just hadn’t really happened to Spieth during the 22-year-old’s sprint to the top of the world rankings, a dash that included a pair of major championships.

In the span of 45 minutes during the final round at Augusta, it disappeared. A bogey at 10. Another at 11. That seemingly endless sequence on 12 where he hit the ball into Rae’s Creek twice on his way to a quadruple bogey 7.

“It was just bad timing on the wrong hole,” Spieth said. “And you know, it is what it is, and I’ll move on. If you’re in contention at a major, hopefully 50-plus times in your career, something like that is bound to happen. Just don’t let it happen again.”

After the Masters, Spieth did what most early 20-somethings with time to burn and money to spend did: he went on a well-appointed Spring Break. Spieth joined Rickie Fowler, Smylie Kaufman and Justin Thomas for a getaway at a tropical resort.

Spieth isn’t worried about his confidence being rattled in the future.

“Our team can draw on the wins, and that’s what we’re going to do,” he said. “We’ve now had a chance to win coming down the stretch in six majors and we’ve won two of them, including the last five and 2014 Masters. So that’s still a pretty good percentage, if you’re in contention six times, you win two of them, a third of the time.

Considering my age, and hopefully with continued good health and continued improved play, if we keep that percentage up, we’ll be all right.”