Spieth not sure what happened on ‘off day’

Jordan Spieth didn’t trail once in his three matches during pool play of the World Golf Championships-Dell Match Play Championship.

On Saturday in the Sweet 16 he didn’t lead once.

The world No. 1 was ousted by Louis Oosthuizen, 4 and 2, the match ending on the 16th hole at Austin Country Club and bringing to an end Spieth’s strange day.

While he was in complete control in winning matches against Jamie Donaldson, Victor Dubuisson and Justin Thomas the first three days of the competition, Spieth had little command of his game or ball in the loss to Oosthuizen, who won three consecutive holes on the back nine to take command.

Spieth’s troubles, however, began when he started warming up.

“I didn’t make it very hard on Louis, which is unfortunate. I was off from when I hit my first 10 shots on the range. The ball was slicing off, which is very odd,” Spieth said. “I’ve had incredible control of the ball this week and of my wedges. I’m not exactly sure what happened, I still don’t really know.

“And it could have been something as simple as ball position or alignment. I tried to figure it out for the entire range session, but I just couldn’t grab a shot that I knew I could go to the course with. And on the first hole I sliced it off the tee there and kind of went from there. It was just a very off day.”

He’ll likely lose the No. 1 ranking to Jason Day, who advanced to Sunday’s semifinals.

Spieth will head home to Dallas for a few days ahead of playing next week’s Shell Houston Open. While this is the fifth consecutive start for Spieth where he won’t be in contention on a Sunday, he’s not too worried heading to Houston and then Augusta, Ga., where he’ll defend his Masters title.

“I feel much more confident than I did about Augusta. I played very, very solid the last few days and most importantly I made a lot of birdies, and that’s something I haven’t been doing as of late is capitalizing when I do hit those good wedges or iron shots in. And I made six or seven birdies against Justin yesterday and that kind of round can really do a lot for me mgentally.”