AUSTIN, Texas — As much golf as Jordan Spieth likes to play, it took as much discipline as he could muster to not play at all.

When he left the Masters on Nov. 15, the only two rounds of golf he played were of the recreational variety. One was a trip with friends to Whispering Pines in southeast Texas, which was more about having a few beers and swinging the club. The other was his annual December trip to Augusta National with sponsors from AT&T.

“I didn’t play a serious round from Sunday of Augusta until the Wednesday before I left for San Diego,” Spieth said, a span of 65 days before he started out his 2021 campaign at Torrey Pines.

He missed the cut and fell to No. 92 in the world, his lowest position since he headed to the John Deere Classic at age 19 and won for the first time on the PGA Tour.

In that respect, Spieth is happy to be at his second home — he spent three semesters at the University of Texas — for the Dell Technologies Match Play. All any of the 64 players at Austin Country Club need is a tee time, and then there’s no telling how the most fickle week in golf will pan out.

The plan endorsed by swing coach Cameron McCormick was to stay away from the golf Spieth loves to play and stick to work on the range as he tried to rediscover the blueprint that made him so successful in the first place. Even recreational golf is reactionary, and there was no point in falling into bad habits until they were broken.

McCormick believes 80% of PGA Tour members love to play and 20% — Vijay Singh comes to mind — prefer to spend long hours on the range. Spieth was part of the majority.

“But when you’re trying to revisit and re-engineer a former self, there’s some constructive work that needs to go on,” McCormick said. “That constructive work required him to turn himself into a `practicer’ for a period of time and exercise some self-discipline that, `I need to stay away from the golf course.’ He was in golf course quarantine.

“It probably felt to him like a year.”

Missing the cut led to a weekend of very constructive work, and Spieth quickly turned the corner. He had a share of the 54-hole lead in Phoenix and a two-shot lead going into the last day at Pebble Beach. He has played consistently better every step of the way and made the Match Play field with room to spare.