63: Jordan Spieth's At It Again

A year ago he made an anonymous missed-cut debut at the Farmers Insurance Open. One year later Jordan Spieth fired a second-round 63 playing with Tiger Woods and leads after 36-holes.

Steve DiMeglio leads his USA Today game story with the turnaround from last year to Spieth's 10-under par performance that his him leading Stewart Cink by one.

John Strege notes that Spieth's 17 of 18 GIR performance was a vintage 1999 Tiger Woods performance.

"The kid's got talent," Woods said after his own unremarkable round of one-under par 71 that left nine strokes in arrears of Spieth. "He hits it a long way and is a phenomenal putter. He made a boatload of putts today from the 10 to 20-foot range and that's on poa greens. That's not easy to do. But he was pouring them in there. He had speed to them, too. He had enough speed to get through it [the bumpy poa annua] and he putted with a lot of confidence."

Bob Harig quotes Spieth after the round and it's clear the young man is fearless.

To give it some everyman perspective: Spieth could have given Tiger 4 shots a side and come out even.

"I wasn't intimidated by any means," said Spieth, 20, who is the reigning PGA Tour Rookie of the Year. "I grew up watching him obviously just like I did with a lot of these veterans out here, so I've idolized him, watched him win majors and whatnot. It was exciting to finally be paired with him."

As for Woods, his par-5 performance has been stunningly...bad by Woods standards. Ryan Lavner explains.

Robert Lusetich focused on Tiger's interesting post-round comments about aging and how Spieth clearly does not carry some of the burdens that a golfer with experience carries.

I asked Woods if he remembered being young and banging in putts.

“You haven't experienced enough yet, you know?” he said.

“When you get out there and the more years go on, the more you say, you know, where's Indio, or where's Pacific or where's Atlantic, it's got to be breaking that way.

“Things of that nature do start happening as you get a little bit older.”

Meanwhile, Phil Mickelson is "unsure" whether he's going to keep playing Saturday after his back did not get any better he fears getting into bad swing habits or even further injury.

Doug Ferguson's game story notes that 83 players made the cut, meaning there will be another cut after Saturday play.

The highlights: