PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Fla. -- Jordan Spieth had just completed the longest 11 minutes of his career.
It began with him standing on the tee box of the iconic par-3 12th hole at Augusta National Golf Club and leading the Masters Tournament by a stroke, down from a 5-shot differential just a half-hour earlier. His first swing resulted in his ball splashing into Rae's Creek, which borders the grassy slope guarding the front of the green. The next one, from the drop zone, found the same demise.
By the time he trudged toward the 13th tee, Spieth had an unseemly quadruple-bogey on his scorecard. The inevitability of his successfully defending his title had mutated into a fading improbability.
What happened next speaks volumes about his ability to put the past behind him and laugh in the face of adversity. As Spieth reached the tee box, he turned to playing partner Smylie Kaufman, who was suffering through an ignominious performance of his own. However, Kaufman had just birdied the 12th hole, bettering his buddy by a whopping 5 strokes.
With a straight face, Spieth spoke to someone besides caddie Michael Greller for the first time since the quadruple-bogey disaster.
"I said, 'Smylie, whose tee is it?'" Spieth recounted Wednesday. "Then I smiled at him."
Honors on the tee, of course, always belong to the player who scored better on the previous hole. In the immediate aftermath of the 12th, Spieth offered some levity.
"I mean, what else is there to do? Break a club?" he said. "It already happened."
The humor was enough to confuse his playing partner.
"He almost convinced me that it was him because it was him the entire round," Kaufman said. "I was like, 'Maybe it is you. I don't know.' So we had a laugh and both hit good tee shots."
Their shared laugh shouldn't be discounted when remembering that Spieth followed his quad with a birdie on the par-5 13th. Many professional golfers might've packed it in after that score, with their confidence shaken after such a monumental meltdown. Spieth simply marched ahead. All of which should serve as a microcosm for his mindset as he prepares to compete for the first time since that final round -- at least, that's how he sees it.
On the eve of this week's Players Championship, Spieth sat in the tournament's interview room and was peppered by questions from the assembled media about last month's collapse.
Do you need to put the Masters out of your mind? Are you anxious about competing again? What was the best advice you received in the aftermath? Do you think people will stop feeling sorry for you?
Spieth answered every question like he was tapping in an uphill 2-foot par putt.
He was honest about the Masters loss but undaunted in his assertion that it won't linger. If there was a singular point he wanted to make, it was that he'll struggle again in the future -- maybe even this week -- but it won't be due to any sort of hangover from Augusta.
"I'm not affected by it," he said. "It was the wrong miss at the wrong time. I mean, if I hit a good shot, and it catches a gust and goes in the water, it's not because of the Masters. It's not something that was in my head, or if I put a bad swing on it."
The question kept coming -- for good reason. How Spieth plays in the aftermath of the Masters will endure as one of the most intriguing plotlines of this year.
Once again, not unlike at the 13th tee last month, Spieth applied a bit of humor to the situation.
"I think people have moved on already," he said, again offering that poker face. "At least, I thought so until I came in here today."
For those who question whether Spieth has the mental fortitude to bounce back from his latest loss, pay attention to those words. Even better, pay attention to the words he said on that 13th tee, after the 11 longest minutes of his career.
"I was just trying to figure out a way to get it back," he said of the comment to Kaufman. "I wanted to lighten the mood."
In that moment, it worked. There's no reason to believe it won't work as he moves past it.