The Open: Jordan Spieth aims to avoid repeat of Masters 'humbling'
Last Updated: 23/07/17 6:49pm
Jordan Spieth is determined to avoid a repeat of his Masters meltdown last year as he takes a three-shot lead into the final round of The 146th Open.
Spieth vowed to "keep my head down" on Sunday at Royal Birkdale after opening up a commanding advantage over fellow American Matt Kuchar with a flawless five-birdie 65 in near-perfect conditions for "moving day".
Kuchar was just one behind his Ryder Cup team-mate with three to play before he ran up a double-bogey at the 16th, and he was unable to convert from six feet at the last after Spieth had nailed a superb putt from the fringe to close on 11 under.
Spieth was five shots clear at the turn on the final day at Augusta National last year, but he bogeyed 10 and 11 and then found water twice at the short 12th as he crashed to a quadruple-bogey seven, which opened the door for Danny Willett to snatch his first major title.
"I've had a five-shot lead in a major and squandered it before so I've had the height and the humbling," said Spieth. "Therefore I will keep my head down and not get ahead of myself and that's the biggest thing to do in the next 20 hours.
"But I'll stay loose, smile a lot, and that's what I did today, and if I play the way I've been playing things will take care of themselves. There's a lot of golf left tough conditions coming so I've got to keep my head down, set a goal, push forward.
"We will just kind of see what's forecasted, see how the day is going thus far, where the pins are, what the scores are, that's what we did today and we built a goal of four under. I tried to make two birdies each side today, but I was able to better it by one with that bonus on the 18th.
"But Sunday is a different story. It could play similar to Friday, at least that's what it looks like. We're looking at 15-20mph winds with chances of rain so even par becomes a pretty good score and therefore the gameplan changes.
"We had favourable conditions today and greens that were softer and I thought that was going to be tougher to hold a lead because you know guys are going to be making birdies. When you are in the lead you tend to play a little safer and it was a course where we needed to be aggressive.
"And I thought we took an aggressive gameplan. I committed to my shots today, had a lot of opportunities for birdies, made a couple of nice par saves, but it was relatively stress free given the scenario."
Kuchar, meanwhile, remained upbeat over his chances of catching his compatriot, although he was left to rue his mistakes at the 16th as he found sand off the tee and then compounded the error by taking three putts.
"That was too bad," he said. "It got a little bit wet at the time, it finally started raining, and the ball just slipped a little bit and over-caught. It was frustrating as I actually thought it was a pretty good drive. It was cold, wet and there was enough wind that it held up in the bunker.
"That was frustrating because I know there's so much room left, and even the left rough is very playable. It's very light over there on 16, so it's a frustrating miss. But it's one shot, I took my penalty, and too bad that I three-putted there and made it worse.
"It's great to bounce back with a birdie on 17 and almost have a birdie on 18, and being in the last group of a major championship is an exciting place to be. Walking up the 18th, the last group Saturday of a British Open, having the stands and the people cheer, it's completely unique."