Masters champion Jordan Spieth will have the benefit of home support when he looks to bounce back from missing the cut in the Players Championship with victory in the Crowne Plaza Invitational.
The Dallas-born 21-year-old returns to action in his native Texas a fortnight after making an early exit at Sawgrass, where he was put in the shade by playing partner Rory McIlroy over the first two days.
Spieth finished seventh at Colonial in 2013 and 14th last year, when Adam Scott defeated Jason Dufner in a play-off to ensure he held on to the world number one spot he had inherited from Tiger Woods the week before.
"I'm very excited," Spieth told a pre-tournament press conference. "I feel like I got my feet under me this past week. Unfortunately I had a week and a half off. Don't really like taking weekends off.
" But I got to get to work early in the week. Normally I take Monday, Tuesday off in an off week. I had Saturday and Sunday to rest, so a little extra time to prepare.
" I feel like my energy is up, my weight's back up. I'm excited for these two weeks, and this is going to be a really fun stretch. To come back home with the green jacket and be introduced like that is really special. It's where it really starts to hit me what it means.
"Colonial is a place that's special to me. I've played it a couple of years, had success here. (I'm) Very comfortable on the golf course, and you know, hopefully the weather holds up, but I know that the grass is healthy, so it's going to be playing the way we want it to play; thick rough, tough challenging conditions, and I think that's what everyone is looking for."
Spieth's record-breaking victory at Augusta National invited comparisons with 14-time major winner Woods, who also won his first green jacket at the age of 21.
But the world number two is determined not to focus on such similarities, adding: " I didn't even know that my putt on the 72nd hole of the Masters was to break his (72-hole) record. No, I try to stay away from that.
" We have goals as a team that we set. We set lofty ones to try and accomplish them, try not to compare to anybody else. There's a lot of short?term and a lot of long?term goals that I have yet to work hard for, and that's all that I really focus on.
"I experienced it when I was in junior golf, reading and maybe looking at videos and all this of what people are saying about comparisons to different players, and it didn't make much sense to me, so I just kind of swore off of it then."
Source: PA
