AUGUSTA, Ga. — It feels like yesterday when Jordan Spieth won the 2015 Masters, at age 21, and started wearing his green jacket to games played by his favorite Texas teams — the Mavericks, Rangers and Longhorns.

Nothing in sports distinguishes a champion quite like that jacket.

“You carry a trophy around, if you’re not a golf fan, you may get confused,” Spieth said. “But even the non-golf fans know what the jacket is.”

But here’s the strangest thing in the days leading up to his 10th Masters appearance: Even though Spieth has yet to celebrate his 30th birthday, it seems a bit disappointing that he hasn’t already won the green jacket for a second time.

He has five top-three finishes in his first nine trips to Augusta National, a record of achievement matched only by Arnold Palmer, and yet that dominance here almost works against him.

So does that ungodly collapse on the final nine of the 2016 Masters, when his wet and wild misadventure on the 12th hole cost him a two-peat.

And the blown opportunity in 2018, when Spieth felt he should have won the tournament.

“I’d love to get in the mix,” Spieth said Monday, “because I feel like right now, I feel better about my game than I’ve felt since probably 2017.”

Spieth won the British Open that year for his third and (for now) last major title.

Though a PGA Championship victory is all that separates him from a career Grand Slam, Spieth knows his legacy will be framed by what he does and doesn’t do at the Masters, won a combined eight times by Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson.

“I really fell in love with the game because of this tournament, back to Tiger’s chip-in [in 2005] and Phil’s first win [in 2004],” Spieth said. “These were kind of heroic moments when I was at an age where I was playing some other sports and loving golf, and it inspired me to really take up the game and see what kind of moments you can create, because the ball is always in your hands. Few things are as electric as those moments they had in sports. I wanted to create my own.”

Spieth has created more than his fair share.

“Ten years here, a lot of experience,” he said. “I can look back and say I learned a lot from winning, and learned a lot from losing. … This is the highest-viewed golf tournament in the world, and I like to always call it our Super Bowl, but at the same time, that’s still a game, too.”