Golf and Presidents of the USA tend to go hand in hand. William Howard Taft, Franklin D Roosevelt, Dwight Eisenhower, Barack Obama, Donald Trump?

The men of the White House have always liked clattering away at a little white ba’ even if some of the swings of said heid honchos have been as eye-watering as Trump’s foreign policies.

Teddy Roosevelt once warned that “golf is fatal” to a man’s Presidential aspirations but another of his quotes seems to be standing Jordan Spieth in good stead as the young Texan embarks on the new golfing campaign.

Roosevelt’s empowering Man in the Arena speech, which essentially mocked those critiquing from the safety of the sidelines while championing those who endured in the pursuit of a goal, continues to resonate with Spieth. “It’s my favourite quote from all time,” said the American ahead of the PGA Tour’s 2018 opener in Hawaii this week.

Spieth knows all about persevering in the face of adversity. His Masters meltdown in 2016 had drooling, hysterical observers working themselves into a ghoulish frenzy while his flirtation with another calamity in the final round of last summer’s Open, where he turned a potentially disastrous tee-shot on the 13th into a magical surge to victory, gave him the ultimate redemption.

“The Open Championship did wonders for me individually,” he reflected. “Not only for my view of myself, but for my view of being the man in the arena. I’m the one that’s out there, I’m the one who’s putting it on the line every single week.

“I’m going to fail and learn and I’m going to succeed. It’s like that quote from Teddy Roosevelt. There are going to be critics and people who disagree with the way you do things but I feel like I’m in a great place with who I am and what I’m doing going forward.

“In sport, nobody’s perfect. But it’s not the critic who matter, it’s the man who’s actually there risking everything. I felt like that at the Open and throughout that round it felt like I was juggling the comparisons that I was making in my head to the Masters in 2016.

“But at some point, I was able to shut that off and pretty much say, ‘so what if you don’t end up winning today, it really doesn’t matter’.

“I felt for a good year that I had let outside influences get in the way of my ability to free up and to be okay with not winning. Starting 2018, I’m ready for anything. I’m ready for failure, for success and everything in between.”

A new year brings new opportunities and new possibilities in a global game defined by a terrific depth of talent. While the likes of Spieth and the upwardly mobile Justin Thomas are at the vanguard of a 20-something youth movement, the return – fingers crossed - of Tiger Woods at 42 continues to add a garnish of intrigue to the tasty fare.

“The unknowns are very exciting right now,” said Spieth. “There’s the amount of depth and talent at a younger age mixed with the guys in their 30s and some other phenomenal players that you would say are in their prime.

“And then, the major question obviously is ‘what’s it going to be like with Tiger coming back?’. Based on what it does for ratings and what it perhaps does for a non-golfer’s interest in golf, (the return of Woods) has got to be at the forefront of the excitement. With Tiger we just don’t exactly know what it’s going to bring.

“But I think he’s in the best position he’s been in for a few years to come back and be a regular out here competing. It’s a pretty special time to be a part of professional golf.”

Off the course, Spieth recently popped the question to his girlfriend. Compared to that epic Claret Jug conquest, getting down on one knee was a stroll in the park.

“I was probably most nervous at the Open,” he said.