He's just 16, but Jordan Spieth is thinking big this week

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IRVING, Texas -- Jordan Spieth knows the odds are against him winning this week's HP Byron Nelson Championship. After all, he's an amateur playing in his first PGA TOUR event on a sponsor's exemption. Oh, and he's also just 16 years old.

Jordan Spieth

But while the rest of us expect this week's champion to be someone, er, older, the reigning U.S. Junior Amateur Champion is not about to dismiss the notion completely.

"Nobody that's here enters a tournament if they don't think they can win -- at least in their own minds think they can win," Spieth said Tuesday from the TPC Four Seasons at Las Colinas. "Obviously I know the percentage chances of me winning an event like this right now.

"But anything can happen."

The reality, of course, is that Spieth will be quite happy if he can simply make the cut and play on the weekend. Another Dallas product, Justin Leonard, did it as an amateur playing on a sponsor's exemption in 1993 when he finished tied for 56th.

Leonard, though, was a college player at Texas and about to turn 21. Spieth doesn't turn 17 for two more months and is still a junior in high school at Dallas' Jesuit College Preparatory School. He's slated to graduate next year.

"Making the cut would be something special in itself," said Spieth, the youngest amateur given a sponsor's exemption at the HP Byron Nelson and the first in 15 years. "But obviously you try and get it going and see where that takes you. It's all about momentum out here. See where it goes."

Certainly, golf fans will be interested to see where Spieth's career goes. He's currently No. 1 in the American Junior Golf Association's Polo Rankings and claimed the U.S. Junior Amateur title last year after reaching the semifinals as a 15-year-old in 2008.

If you're looking for the next big thing in golf, maybe Spieth is the kid you should watch. Just ask the locals who know all about him -- Dallas Cowboys quarterback Tony Romo, who's ranked No. 1 in Golf Digest's top athlete golfers, stays in contact with Spieth and recently played a few holes with him in South Carolina.

But even with expectations rising with every swing, Spieth appears to be well-grounded, his demeanor calm. That's the approach he plans to take this week on a course he's played many times and a tournament he's attended as a fan since he was 5 years old.

"You've got to think of it as another tournament," he said. "Obviously with what we're doing here and all the interviews and cameras and the big guys out there, all the manufacturers, it's quite a bit different than anything I've ever seen before.

"But once you get on the course, if you're just thinking you've got a 7-iron in your hand, you've got to think of it as something you're hitting on a driving range, a shot that you've hit thousands of times and not make it bigger than it needs to be."

Make no mistake, though -- this is big. It may not exactly be a coming-out party, but you can consider it an introduction.

But before Spieth tees off Thursday afternoon with playing partners Blake Adams and David Lutterus, he has high school classes to attend on Wednesday morning in English, Spanish and Physics. If there's any homework, he may not get to it until this weekend.

Unless he makes the cut. Then it may take him a while longer.