It was good but not nearly good enough.
Jordan Spieth shot 3-under 68 on Friday in his second round of the Northern Trust Open. It was an 11-shot improvement over the day prior, when he opened at Riviera Country Club with a PGA Tour career-worst first round 79 that left him T-142 in the 144-player field. However, at 5 over par for two rounds, he missed the cut by a handful.
The good news is that Spieth made eight birdies, a day after the circles on the card were sorely lacking. Unfortunately, there were plenty of squares on the card, too -- five, in fact.
"Coming into the day, the hardest part is trying to make enough birdies, and I did that," he said. "Just too many mistakes."
Spieth did get revenge on some of the holes that led to his score ballooning late on Thursday. He birdied Nos. 16, 17 and 18 -- a hole he double-bogeyed to end Round 1 -- before making a birdie at the first after his Friday turn. Then the bad came back and Spieth made three bogeys in the next five holes, only to birdie two of the last three to get out of La-La Land feeling good about the finish.
"I'm not going to let this one get to me very much," Spieth said. "Did a lot of talking with Michael (Greller, his caddie) throughout the end of the round today just saying, 'Don't make this a bigger deal than it is. Look at your missed cuts last year and what happened right after.' And he's right."
The last time Spieth opened nearly as poorly as he did on Thursday wasn't all that long ago. Back in September, he opened over par in each of the first two legs of the FedEx Cup playoffs, missing the cut in both of the tournaments in the four-event series that have them. He rebounded, finishing T-13 at the BMW Championship before winning the Tour Championship and the FedEx Cup.
Now Spieth has a week off to regroup. He'll play next at the WGC-Cadillac Championship at Doral.

Ryan Ballengee is a Yahoo Sports contributor. Find him on Facebook and Twitter.
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