Saturday 14 May 2016 18:29, UK
Jordan Spieth insisted he was not distracted by his Masters collapse after he missed the cut at The Players Championship for the second year in a row.
Spieth, making his first appearance since blowing a five-shot lead midway through the final round at Augusta National a month ago, was one outside the cut mark of two under when the second day's play was suspended on Friday night following an earlier two-hour storm delay.
The world No 2 resumed on the 15th hole early on Saturday morning and started with a bogey, and after pars at 16 and 17, his birdie at the last proved scant consolation as he headed for the airport.
The 22-year-old, who was 14 shots behind runaway leader and playing partner Jason Day after 36 holes, blamed a bad two days on the greens at TPC Sawgrass and admitted he had been too negative on the course.
"I don't think there's much of a connection to the Masters. I just didn't putt well," Spieth said. "Augusta seems like a long time ago to me.
"It's tough when you are getting shellacked by 15 shots in the same group. You see all those birdies going in and you wonder why you aren't making any of them. It's tough seeing every hole being birdied and not being able to do much about it.
"I'm striking the ball great. I just need to grind on my short game. Everybody has off putting weeks, and if I putt anywhere near the standard I normally putt I'm at six or seven under just on the greens.
"I'm beating myself up a little too much on the course and it's affecting me. I realise that now. I need to be a little bit more positive with myself on the course and maybe lower expectations a little bit and free myself up. It seems I'm so tense."
Defending champion Rickie Fowler was also unhappy with his putting after he also missed the cut by a shot after rounds of 72 and 71.
Fowler completed his second round before the storm delay on Friday, birdies at two of his last three holes were not enough to avoid a weekend off when the cut was confirmed at two under on Saturday morning.
"The hardest part is getting to the green," Fowler said. "Hitting fairways, hitting greens, I feel like I did a decent job of that this week. I wouldn't say it was stellar by any means, but I did make a lot of good swings and I feel like I played pretty well tee-to-green, other than a couple of holes.
"I just couldn't make anything on the greens the last two days. You're going to make mistakes out here tee-to-green, but I wasn't able to make up for those with the putter."
Masters champion Danny Willett bogeyed the final hole in the fading light on Friday to also miss the cut by one stroke, and he tweeted: "Well that wasn't the 2 days I was hoping for.. Oh well.. Shook a bit of rust off.. Can't play well every week!! Off to the Irish Open."
