Golf-Spieth says he won Tour Championship with his head

By Larry Fine ATLANTA, Sept 27 (Reuters) - Jordan Spieth identified his heart rather than his swing as the reason he was able to cap off a Player of the Year season by winning the Tour Championship and FedExCup playoffs jackpot on Sunday. "I didn't feel comfortable striking the ball whatsoever, today or this week," Spieth told reporters after collecting $1.485 million for winning the tournament and $10 million for finishing on top of the FedExCup standings at East Lake. "It was amazing that we competed with the way I felt over the ball." Spieth, mature well beyond his 22 years, credited his double victory to his vaunted short game, a burning desire to finish the season on a high and a fresh mental approach underlined by his caddie. "My short game was phenomenal this week," said the Texan, who in Saturday's third round missed nine greens but saved par each and every time, and bailed himself out with a series of pressure-packed, par-saving putts. "We worked a lot on it from Monday morning, getting ready for any kind of position. We played the smart shot, struck them the right way, and hit good solid putts. It was incredible." DOMINATED GOLF Spieth dominated golf for most of the year, winning the Masters and U.S. Open for his first majors, finishing one shot out of a British Open playoff and being runner-up at the PGA Championship. A form dip the past month coincided with a red-hot run by Australian Jason Day, who won four of six events, including the PGA Championship and two of the FedExCup playoff tournaments. That stung the highly-competitive Spieth. "I got frustrated. I missed two cuts in a row, had never done that, lost the number one ranking. I was watching Jason Day just dominate golf," he said. A mental adjustment turned things around. "I made some poor decisions earlier in the playoff stretch because mentally I wasn't in shape," he said. "I was approaching this number one in the world ranking, the end of the majors season, these expectations, I was managing them like a sprint." Spieth said he put pressure on himself to do too much, instead of sticking with his game plan. He briefly fell back into his old self-admonishing ways on Sunday, after back-to-back bogeys at five and six that dropped him level with Sweden's Henrik Stenson, when caddie Michael Greller snapped him back to attention. "At that moment Michael kept me in it," Spieth said, revealing that he had been forbidden by Greller from talking about what had transpired. The seeds to victory may have been planted six days earlier when Spieth and Greller arrived at East Lake on Monday ahead of most players, to work on getting comfortable on the Bermuda greens and rough. "Compared to most other guys, they weren't out there on Monday morning," Spieth said. "I think it's important for getting to know a golf course, especially as you change grass types, change weather conditions. "It was very, very lonely out here on that Monday, which was kind of nice." (Editing by Andrew Both)