Spieth sets sights on matching McIlroy, Woods and Mickelson

Spieth won the Masters and US Open and finished fourth in the Open at St Andrews, missing out on a play-off by a single shot as he looked to win the third leg of an unprecedented calendar grand slam.

The 22-year-old was also second behind Jason Day in the US PGA Championship before winning the Tour Championship in September to take the overall FedEx Cup title and £6.8million bonus, before helping the United States retain the Presidents Cup in Korea.

Spieth then started 2016 by shooting 30 under par to win the Hyundai Tournament of Champions by eight shots and believes he has already improved his game ahead of his debut in a regular European Tour event at the Abu Dhabi HSBC Championship.

“I think there’s two ways of going forward,” Spieth said. “One is you can be satisfied and think about all the stuff you’ve done. Or two, you can look at what these guys who you’ve looked up to your whole life have accomplished more than you have.

“So look at Tiger (Woods), Phil (Mickelson), Rory (McIlroy), these guys that have done more in the game of golf than I have, and I want to strive to get to what they have done.

“I want my name to go down in history for as many things as it can. That’s where my mind is. I’m less satisfied with what’s happened and more hungry to try and keep it going.

“I understand that it doesn’t happen overnight. It’s a marathon, it’s not a sprint. I’m willing to put in that time and go through the process. And you’re going to have good weeks, you’re going to have off weeks, I understand that. But as long as you can get just a little bit better each year, then the results will come.”

Spieth has been grouped with McIlroy and Rickie Fowler for the first two rounds in Abu Dhabi and added: “We very rarely get this pairing and very rarely will going forward, so we’ll take advantage and try and really feed off each other. We all want to beat each other pretty bad, so that should help us out within our group.

“I feel great. I came home from Hawaii, took a couple of days off, went and saw my instructor and I actually feel better the about the way I’m striking my irons coming into this week than I did going into Hawaii

“I’m not going to shoot 30 under this week, I don’t think that’s possible on this golf course. But if I can keep it in the short grass here, I feel very confident about my chances.”