Jordan Spieth kicked himself for not scouting Byron Nelson course, but quick learning rockets him up the board

It seems like a no-brainer, and Jordan Spieth is saying the same thing now. He’s a lifelong Texan who lives in Dallas and has been playing incarnations of the CJ Cup Byron Nelson since he was a 16-year-old high school junior who got a sponsor’s invite. Given that, you figure that at some point before competing in the Nelson this week, he would have driven over to the newly renovated TPC Craig Ranch in McKinney to maybe play some holes or at least have a look.

But time and Spieth’s schedule just got away from him—he’s played 13 weeks out of 16—and his first look came while playing the front nine of Wednesday’s pro-am. By Thursday evening, Spieth said he was kicking himself. He opened the tournament with a middling 68 that put him six shots off the lead in benign conditions, and he felt could have been better if he has just put in some on-course practice time.

“With a new golf course, if you’re going to play a tournament, you’ve got to be prepared,” Spieth said on Friday. “I legitimately felt like I lost a couple of shots yesterday on the back nine because I didn’t come out here and see it. That was eating at me a little bit last night.

Like, ‘Why would you play if you’re not going to prepare the right way? ’” Luckily for Speith, between being a quick learner and his putting coming together in timely fashion, he scorched Craig Ranch with a second-round, nine-under-par 62 in the morning wave that vaulted him 44 spots up the leaderboard and into contention for the weekend. He happened to be trailing clubhouse leader Sungjae Im, his playing partner over the last two days who fired a 61 on Friday that included a hole-in-one with on the 224th seventh hole.