AUGUSTA, Ga. -- Under a fading Georgia sun, standing with hands on hips on a knoll overlooking the 18th green, Steven Spieth was looking at more than the giant Masters scoreboard that reported his older brother held a share of the lead.
He was looking at his childhood.
"I'm at a loss for words seeing that," he said.
Jordan Spieth predicted this would happen, of course. As a boy, he would putt with Steven on the makeshift green in the family's front yard in Dallas, a small green Jordan would maintain with the lawn mower, his kid brother said, "when he was barely old enough to use it."
This was Jordan's personal gateway to Augusta National and a chance to become the youngest winner this tournament's ever seen. "He would be standing on that green, across from me," Steven Spieth said Saturday, "and I can still hear him saying, 'This putt is to win the Masters.'"
Jordan, 20, might just have that putt somewhere on Sunday's back nine. He'll go off at 5-under with Bubba Watson, who started the third round with a three-shot lead and a four-shot advantage over Spieth, who saw this day coming as a 12-year-old confident enough to tell his coach, Cameron McCormick, that he wanted to win the Masters and become the best player in the world.