Jordan Spieth at Phoenix Open 2017: Thursday Score and Reaction

Jordan Spieth opened the Waste Management Phoenix Open in Scottsdale, Arizona, with a solid first round Thursday, shooting a one-under 70 for the day.

He went into the clubhouse with quite a bit of ground to make up over the next three rounds, though. Here is the leaderboard:

Spieth mostly managed the course in the opening round, finishing with two birdies and a bogey. He averaged 319 yards on his drives, hit 66.6 percent of greens in regulations and finished with 0.828 strokes gained putting, per PGATour.com.

Spieth opened his round with six pars and a birdie on No. 15, though he followed that up with his lone bogey on No. 17. From there, he avoided any major mistakes.

His birdie on No. 7 was particularly impressive, per the PGA Tour on Twitter:

His putt to save par at No. 11 was incredible as well:

On Wednesday, Spieth was paired with Olympic legend and swimmer Michael Phelps for the tournament's pro-am competition. Phelps was impressed with Spieth.

"For someone so young, to have such a good head on his shoulders. He's a competitor," he told Brian Wacker of Golf Digest. "He wants to be the best, and you see it. He can be so hard on himself. I can relate to that."

Spieth has certainly played like a golfer aiming to be the best in 2017, finishing third at both the SBS Tournament of Champions and the Sony Open.

Coming into Scottsdale, he broke down his game thus far this season.

"In Hawaii, struck the ball extremely well," he said, per Josh Weinfuss of ESPN.com. "Tee to green, improved on what I was trying to improve on from all of 2016 and really back into '15, same kind of moves I was trying to do. I'm trying to continue to strike it that same way while putting a little more emphasis on repetitions throughout my short game, which I had lacked a little bit of trying to emphasize my long-game gains."

He's kept himself in the running to either win or replicate his 2017 results at the Phoenix Open following his play Thursday, though he'll need to add a few more birdies to his scorecard to put himself firmly in the running for the win.

Given Spieth's form thus far this season, it won't be surprising if he steadily climbs up the leaderboard over the next three rounds.