It’s out with the old and in with the, er, old. Forget all this talk of a new year being the time for a new start. Jordan Spieth is just wanting to get back in the old routine. And let’s face it, it sounds a better routine than half-heartedly lacing up our tattered trainers, shuffling forlornly to the gym and attempting to wheeze away the festive flab. While most of us will be trying to stop guzzling a bit of this, inhaling a bit of that and nibbling a bit of the other, Spieth’s resolutions for 2016 are simple; more of the same, please. After a quite dazzling, captivating season, in which the 22-year-old Texan made us all genuinely believe that the Grand Slam could be possible, Spieth resumes his golfing escapades in Hawaii this week at the Hyundai Tournament of Champions.

Of course, 2015 will take some topping. It was a riveting campaign that started with an enthralling Masters win and was followed by a compelling triumph in the US Open. He was still in the hunt for the Claret Jug during the Open at St Andrews with just two holes to play and eventually finished fourth, just a shot outside the play-off. The Grand Slam dream was over but it was brilliant while it lasted. After finishing second in the US PGA Championship, the final major of the year, Spieth tapped the tin lid on a shimmering season by lifting the PGA circuit’s Tour Championship.

The harsh reality of sport at the highest level is that Spieth will now be judged on that annus mirabilis of 2015 and after all that uplifting stuff, those salivating observers in the golfing media have already been asking him what he will do as an encore in 2016. The young man himself shrugged off the expectation. "Doesn't an encore mean that the show is then over?" he said with a smile. Given his tender years, this golfing showman should have a few more show stopping performances in him yet. Consistency in the rarefied air of major championship challenging is one of the hallmarks of the greats and, in his pomp, only Tiger Woods in the modern era has maintained that on a year to year basis. Rory McIlroy, who has four major titles to his name, is still susceptible to the odd downbeat major showing. Spieth, meanwhile, is keen to look at the long term picture.

“I hope I've got like 40 years out here,” he added as he pondered the prospect of an extended, fulfilling career spent thrashing away at a small dimpled ba’. “To be honest, I'm not thinking of this (year) as anything different. I'm not even thinking of it as a new year. I'm just thinking that we had a three-week break and we're just continuing to hopefully stay at the same level.”

 

 

 

While he refused to outline specific goals for the year ahead, Spieth did unveil what kind of work he has been doing on his game as he looks to fine tune the various cogs and pistons of this high-performance golfing machine.

"I played a few weeks ago and I just had a long enough time for me to sit down with Cameron (McCormick, his coach) after some time off and say, 'all right, here's what we're going to start to do' and we did that strictly by going over statistics,” explained Spieth. "We figured out that specifically my wedge play needs to get better from 60 to 140 yards or so. I felt like my wedge play was average last season.

"On the actual goals, I'm going to keep a lot of that within our team but certainly I’ve got to be there in a couple of the major championships come Sunday and have a chance to do what I did this past year. We had a chance in each of the four Sundays.

"So if I can get there at least a couple times this year again, that means that our plan building up to the majors is working, it’s continuing to work, and then it comes down to each individual event and being able to close them out.”

It’s a new year, but it will be business as usual for Spieth.