An injury that grounded his regular caddy forced World No. 1 Jordan Spieth to call on his manager to carry the clubs on the opening day of the Singapore Open.
Spieth and fellow Texan-born Jay Danzl combined for Spieth to shoot a four under par 67 in sauna-like conditions on the Sentosa course.
It left the four-time Major winning trailing just one shot behind South African Keith Horne who carded a five under par 66.
Spieth is believed to have been paid $US3m in appearance fee to compete on the island nation and he didn’t disappoint with a bogey-free round.
However most interest was in the decision to call on Danzl to carry the club while regular bagman Michael Greller having injured his knee while caddying last week in Abu Dhabi.
Jordan Spieth and his manager Jay Danzl arriving at Changi Airport in Singapore.
“I think Jay stepped in extremely well and it’s a tough place to come in and caddie when you’re not used to carrying the bag, with the weather,” said Spieth.
“But he took it like a champ and he’s caddied for me before, he’s caddied at the Dunlop Phoenix in Japan so at least we have some rounds under our belt and we’ve played a lot together so it’s an easy one week replacement while Michael’s getting healthy.”
Spieth is competing in Singapore for a first time in his career and in what has been a whirlwind two months for the American having travelled from Shanghai late last year to Sydney, and then onto the Bahamas.
The American then won in Hawaii in the first week of this month before then travelling last week to the UAE for the Abu Dhabi HSBC Championship.
Jordan Spieth competing in 2016 Singapore Open and starts with a four under par 67.
“I got off to a great start with a birdie on the first,” he said.
“I then I had two great shots in the second and just misread the putt, and then after my fourth hole (#13) just didn’t have many looks, I didn’t get the ball inside 15 feet, and I had plenty of opportunities too, hit a couple of shots that I don’t normally hit, I hit a really chunky wedge from a hundred yards, it’s one out of a hundred to miss the green there and for how often I hit that shot, so that took away a birdie opportunity. But I played the Par 5 extremely well. Obviously I hit the fairway to a good number and I hit each green and was able to just two putt, and three birdies and I played the rest of the course in 1 under. Pretty stress free and but no real opportunities.
“My speed control was great, with no three putts, I had a lot of putts over 30 feet today, eight or nine putts over 30 feet. Typically I don’t use a practice stroke when a putt unless I’m only trying to coast it near the hole. I had to do that at 8 or 9 of the green, when that’s happening and I’m looking up and taking those practice strokes, I know I’m not hitting it close enough. But still the speed was great, I didn’t lose any shots on those and a couple putts I didn’t hit, a couple of decent opportunities like 13 and 8, my second last hole, I didn’t put a stroke on it, but for the most part I did.”
And it’s the first time Spieth has endured heat and humidity that is so common to the region and he spoke of dealing with the conditions.
“It’s fine! It’s definitely hot, definitely humid, no doubt about that, but it’s not overbearing, you just got to drink enough water,” he said.
“There were times in the day where I said I haven’t drank water in a hole or two and you could kind of feel it when you don’t, so you just got to keep on drinking”.#
As for the championship Serapong Course?
“It met the expectations, that not only I had coming in, but what everybody else had told me,” he said.
“My expectations were high coming in, considering how highly people have spoken of this golf course. I was curious about where pins would be and they did a great job of putting them where grain changes on the green which makes it tricky, making it look like it’s not that hard. It played very similar to a pretty challenging PGA Tour event.”
