Jordan Spieth prepares to play off the 18th tee with his caddie during the first round of the British Open Golf Championship last year at Muirfield, Scotland. Last year, he showed up as a 19-year-old fresh off his first win, and the kid who left Texas after one year and no guarantees is now talked about as a favorite at every major he plays.

HOYLAKE, England — Jordan Spieth was so caught up in the debate he never realized he might have been talking about himself.

The topic was college football.

Three days into the new year, Spieth was getting ready to play a practice round at Kapalua when he walked into a conversation about Oklahoma’s upset win over Alabama in the Sugar Bowl. A caddie was blaming Nick Saban for being so critical of the Crimson Tide leading up to the game that it rattled his players. Spieth, a football junkie and sideline guest during the Oklahoma-Texas game, shook his head.

“Listen you guys, 20-year-olds don’t get rattled by (anything) — trust me on that one,” he said before walking away. Two people left behind at the coffee machine stared at each other for a moment, wondering if the kid knew what he had just said.

Spieth is 20.

He gets angry at some of the shots he plays. He talks to himself so much on the golf course that he provides his own color commentary.

But rattled?

Not over a bunker shot on the final hole at the John Deere Classic that he made for birdie to get into a playoff for his first PGA Tour victory. Not in a final-round pairing with Phil Mickelson, when he shot 62 in a performance so impressive that Mickelson told Presidents Cup captain Fred Couples, “Dude, you’ve got to pick this guy.”

Spieth wasn’t rattled as the youngest American to play in the Presidents Cup, either. During a team match against Tiger Woods in a practice round, he won the 12th hole by making a hole-in-one. And he didn’t look fazed when he shot 64 and nearly won the FedEx Cup, two months after getting his PGA Tour card.

He became the first player since another 20-year-old — Woods — to start a season without status and reach the Tour Championship.

Spieth is not the next Tiger Woods. But he sure got Woods’ attention.

“For a person to have come out of college and done this well, this fast and been as consistent ... normally when you’re young, you come out and you may have two, three good weeks a year, maybe more,” Woods said. “It just seems like he’s having one every week. He’s always up there.”

Spieth, who won’t turn 21 until a week after the British Open, is among the favorites at Royal Liverpool.

Even though the John Deere Classic remains his only victory, his body of work can’t be ignored.

Spieth is No. 10 in the world, and only Sergio Garcia and Rory McIlroy cracked the top 10 at a younger age.