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Charles Schwab Challenge: Jordan Spieth excited about chance to extend his Colonial legacy

The Texan is always happy playing in his home state and he has the results to prove it.

Jordan Spieth loves to play Augusta National, often calling it his favourite golf course.

He also adores playing at Riviera Country Club, often calling that his favourite place to play golf as well.
But the Texan is also just very, very good playing golf on home soil.
In fact, his last 30 starts in his home state have reaped no less than 18 top 20 finishes.
And at this week's venue, the Colonial Country Club in Forth Worth, he is even better.
Ahead of the first round of the Charles Schwab Championship Spieth spoke to the press. Let's use those words, together with his results and stats, to see assess his chances of landing a second tournament win this week.

Spieth At Colonial

"I think the results show that I love this place," he said. "It seems that, for whatever reason, my game fits really well and I really enjoy playing it. It requires some precision in the wind off the tee, obviously hitting fairways being of huge importance here, given how difficult it is out of the rough."
You might think that accuracy with the long game is a weakness of Spieth's and yet the stats insist otherwise.
He has five times ranked top 10 for Strokes Gained Tee to Green at Colonial and this year he ranks 26th for Off the Tee, 13th for Approach and 8th for Tee to Green.
Moreover, after his win in The Heritage a month ago he said, of his missed cut in the Masters: "I was hitting it really, really well and honestly just didn't feel like I deserved to miss that cut. I felt like I hit shots right where I wanted to and ended up somehow at 6-over-par.
"I've been hitting the ball really, really well all spring, better than I did last year, and I just haven't been scoring."

Spieth putting at Colonial

One of the problems Spieth identified, even after the Heritage win, was his putting. His answer was to hit the practice green and he said, of his performance when T34th in last week's PGA Championship: "I felt like I putted the best I've putted this year last week and it just didn't show in the stats.
"But it was the most free-flowing strokes I've had, and I feel like myself and (my coach) Cameron have made a lot of good progress on the greens.
"I think it's a matter of time before the lid comes off and I start to pour some in. A little disappointing that didn't happen last week. I misread a lot of putts.
"Out here (at Colonial) I don't really have the excuse of misreading putts because I should know where most of them go having played this course 60 to 75 times. I'm excited about that.
"I've putted well here. I love the slopes of the greens and seem to find success regardless of form coming in some years, and some years I'm in form coming in and then play well here."
He's right about that. He has an average Strokes Gained number of 7.732 for Putting in the last three years and has been top three for Putts per Round in five of the last six years.

Spieth's form

"I've been playing really well," he said this week, harking back not only to the Heritage win but the second place in the AT&T Byron Nelson just two weeks ago.
"Last week was just a little minor step back, so I'm looking to try and tighten some things up and get back into contention.
"I still struck it pretty well last week, it just didn't quite feel as good as it had the previous two tournaments. I know why, just got to kind of get on top of it and make sure that that was just kind of a one-week step back on that front, and keep progressing forward, and hopefully just have a really consistent next few months."

Spieth at Colonial by numbers

He's played nine times, has never missed a cut and never been close to doing so.
He's ticked off eight top 15 finishes, finishing second three times and he was the winner 2016. He has a scoring average (against a par of 70) of 67.74.
He also loves a fast start. He averages 66.11 on Thursdays, has shared two first round lead and been tied seventh or better another three times after 18 holes.

READ MORE: Charles Schwab Championship: How do the big guns perform the week after a Major?

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