British Open 2015: News on Jordan Spieth's Quest for 3rd Straight Major

Jordan Spieth showed us Thursday morning the hype and pressure surrounding a potential third straight major would not affect his play.

The 21-year-old shot a five-under 67 in the first round of the 2015 British Open and sits just two strokes off clubhouse leader Dustin Johnson going into Friday. 

The reigning Masters and U.S. Open champion could become just the second person ever to win three majors in a single season with a win at the Old Course at St. Andrews, Scotland.

Spieth began his quest to match Ben Hogan's 1953 achievement on a high note. He birdied five of his first seven holes and rounded off his front nine with four pars and zero bogeys at the turn. 

Although he stayed even on the back nine, a birdie on the 18th hole helped Spieth pull two shots within Johnson, who finished his first round with a seven-under 65. 

"I'm very pleased with the start," Spieth said after the first round, per Karen Crouse of the New York Times. "If D.J. keeps driving it the way he is, then I'm going to have to play my best golf to have a chance."

Ironically, the two golfers were paired with each other on Thursday just a month after Johnson three-putted the final hole to lose the U.S. Open to Spieth. 

"I enjoyed playing with Dustin," Spieth said in his post-round press conference. "I've played a lot of golf with him. It was an unfortunate ending to the Open in general and today, we just got off to a normal round of golf like always and we were actually able to feed off each other." 

Johnson, the U.S. Open runner-up, isn't the only threat to Spieth's reign.

Five golfers finished six-under on Thursday while 13 others shot four-under or better—five of whom are tied with Spieth for sixth place.

After Day 1 at the British Open, the leaderboard is filled with former major championship winners including Retief Goosen (-6), Paul Lawrie (-6), Charl Schwartzel (-5) and Louis Oosthuizen (-5).

You can check out the leaderboard here.

Don't expect the world No. 2 to get rattled, though. 

"I don't feel intimidated by anybody," he said heading into Thursday's play, per Ben Dirs of BBC Sport. "Whoever is up at the top of the leaderboard, I want to knock them off."

Masters runner-up Phil Mickelson is off to a good start, too, sitting at two-under through 16 holes on Thursday. 

Meanwhile, three-time Open Championship winner Tiger Woods had another poor showing. He finished with a four-over 76 and sits tied for 143rd place in the leaderboard. 

The difference in the level of play between Spieth and Woods right now was put into perspective by ESPN's Jason Sobel. 

Spieth's 2015 season will surely go down as one of the best. He already has four victories so far including the John Deere Classic on Sunday. 

He certainly seemed to carry the momentum of that win into Scotland this weekend.

A win at St. Andrews would make Spieth the first golfer ever to carry three major victories into the PGA Championship with a chance at a Grand Slam. 

Dan is a featured writer in B/R's Advanced Program in Sports Media. You can follow him on Twitter @dan_servodidio.