Spieth praises U.S. Open champion Koepka

LA, June 21: Jordan Spieth believes Brooks Koepka hasn’t been given enough credit for winning back-to-back U.S. Open titles.

The world’s fifth-ranked player is currently preparing for The Open Championship at Carnoustie after last weekend’s challenging major at Shinnecock Hills, where a number of top players missed the cut, including the American.

Spieth has been struggling with consistency throughout 2018, but preferred to praise Koepka rather than discuss other factors at play during the tournament.

"I think it's a bit of a shame that the main focus hasn't been on Brooks Koepka winning back-to-back U.S. Open titles, at least from what I've seen and heard," he told a conference call.

"It's been on the golf course, players complaining, Phil (Mickelson), and you never really want that because it's such a difficult thing to do to win a major.

"I don't know what it's like to repeat back-to-back years, but we do what we do for the glory, for the other people that talk about it.

"But it is nice for the reaction to be about the accomplishment versus the failure of something else."

Spieth did acknowledge, though, he didn’t play his best golf during the U.S. Open weekend.

"Unfortunately I don't have much of a gauge on the difficulty of last week," he said.

"I only saw two rounds and I thought the course was very playable on the first two days. The conditions the first day were tough, but I just shot myself in the foot.

"It wasn't anything other than the way that I played; the way that I struck the ball, that threw me out. I have no one else to blame. "