The following year, Spieth missed his high school graduation ceremony after making the cut again at TPC Four Seasons.

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Now at the ripe young age of 20, Spieth is the eighth-ranked player in the world. He comes home to the Nelson as the Masters runner-up and only days after playing with champion Martin Kaymer in the final group at The Players Championship.

"I owe a lot in my career thus far for this golf tournament and those first couple of starts that I was given to gain the confidence of knowing that I can come out and make cuts and really compete, even at a young age," Spieth said Wednesday. "I thought this is what I wanted to do for a living. .... The weeks when I was 16 and 17 here kind of put an exclamation point on it that this is possible."

Since last year's Nelson, his first getting a paycheck, Spieth became the youngest PGA Tour winner since 1931, earned a captain's pick on the Presidents Cup team and was named the 2013 PGA Tour Rookie of the Year.

When he glanced up at the television during a workout Wednesday morning, Spieth caught a flashback video from his first Nelson.

"I looked like I was 9 years old. It was funny," he said. "It seems like it was years and years and years ago, a different life almost."

Spieth has six top-10 finishes this season. He shared the 54-hole lead at the Masters and at The Players, last week going his first 58 holes without a bogey before five on the next 11 holes and tied for fourth.

"I'm happy that I've been in these positions, because I understand now and I'm getting more comfortable each and every time that I'm in a position of high intensity and a lot of pressure," he said. "I get very lucky on the golf normally, so one of these days it will happen on Sunday."

Like Spieth in the past, another top-ranked junior player from Dallas has a sponsor exemption to play the Nelson. Scottie Scheffler, a 17-year-old senior at Highland Park High School, is committed to play at the University of Texas, where Spieth spent one season before turning pro.

''It's been mentioned for a while and I don't mind," Scheffler said of the comparisons to Spieth. "It's a pretty good person to be compared to."