A very surreal -- and historic -- day for this teenage amateur

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Jordan Spieth had lots of fans following him Friday ... and lots of caps to sign.

IRVING, Texas -- So you're 16 years, 9 months and 24 days old. Hundreds of your classmates have ditched high school to watch you achieve the improbable. Word spreads through the course and now others want to join the fun. You just might do this thing. You just might make the cut.

You reach the final few holes and the decibel level rises. The gallery chants your name. One of your playing partners, one of the great untold stories of this tournament, is shooting lights-out and will eventually claim a share of the clubhouse lead. But this moment is for you. You're the rock star. You're the flavor of the day.

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And when it's over, when you had made par at 18 (although you really should've rolled in the 9-footer for birdie) and you had sealed your spot for the weekend -- the sixth youngest player to ever make the cut at a PGA TOUR event -- things should have slowed down. Sorry, think again.

There were autographs to sign. Everybody wanted to talk with you. Radio stations. Television stations. You climbed into the booth where Nick Faldo and Kelly Tilghman were waiting. That was pretty cool. After all, you watch GOLF CHANNEL all the time. "Sir Nick" -- you call him by his knighted name; how cute -- has a few majors in his pocket. Kinda nice to rub those elbows.

You tape an interview with ESPN that will air on SportsCenter. Then time to entertain the golf media in the press room. They hang on your every word. You even crack a joke or two. They laugh. It's all pretty amazing (especially the jaded reporters laughing part).

"Almost surreal," you say.

Wrong. It is surreal.

A day like this doesn't come around often, when a 16-year-old turns a PGA TOUR event on its ear. No one expects Jordan Spieth to win this week's HP Byron Nelson Championship -- although Spieth himself isn't ruling out the possibility -- but no one will forget the buzz he produced on Friday when his 1-under 69 left him at 3 under for the tournament, safely inside the cutline.

There were other players Friday who produced more fireworks. Cameron Beckman went out and tied the course record at TPC Four Seasons Resort, shooting 61 to grab a share of the second-round lead at 10 under. One of Spieth's playing partners, Blake Adams, is also at 10 under after his impressive 64.

Adams is the hardest-luck story you've ever heard, a former Nationwide Tour player whose battle against an inhumane succession of injuries -- torn rotator cuffs, bulging disk, arthritis, broken ankle, broken fingers, bad hip, etc. -- is a study in resiliency.

Perhaps any other day, the spotlight would belong to him. Perhaps any other day, the loudest cheers would be in his name.

"I kinda almost felt bad for Blake because everybody was screaming my name out there and he was tied for the lead," Spieth said. "But you know, that's him. He doesn't mind, I'm sure."

Adams doesn't mind because he knows the crowds -- including hundreds of students at Jesuit College Preparatory School -- came out to watch the Dallas teen. At 7:15 a.m. local time Friday, when Adams, Spieth and the third member of their group, David Lutterus, resumed their first round, roughly 200 people were in attendance.

"I don't think too many people would want to come out here to see me play at 7:15 in the morning," Adams said, 'but there was a lot of folks out there to watch him.

"It was a great atmosphere."

Once the group finished their first round, Spieth shooting 2-under 68 with two birdies on his last three holes, they took a quick 30-minute break before starting their second round.

One hole into the round, Speith mistakenly played out of turn, having forgotten that this was a new round and not just the continuation of the previous round. When his caddie informed him of the faux pas, Spieth quickly apologized to Lutterus.

No harm done. It helped to have a couple of laid-back players -- Adams lives in southern Georgia and Lutterus is an Australian currently living in Fort Worth -- accompanying the high school junior on this two-day emotional journey. Spieth said he learned a lesson by watching the calm demeanor that Adams displayed while moving up the leaderboard.

"The guys that I was playing with were great," Spieth said. "Awesome guys."

Meanwhile, Spieth just kept firing at pins. He played with his usual aggressiveness and he didn't seem unnerved at all on a course he's played plenty of times. He got to 4 under at one point. Playing well, feeling the moment -- it seemed like the most natural thing in the world to him.

So what if the rest of the guys in the field are fighting for the cash, fighting for the livelihoods. They don't have to take final exams in a couple of weeks.

Besides, as you've said all week, anything can happen.

"I don't want to think of myself as the amateur out here," Spieth said. "I want to think of myself as a contender."

Will reality set in at some point? Perhaps so. Perhaps Spieth will get a first-hand look at what Moving Day means on the PGA TOUR each Saturday. Perhaps he'll make the mistake of reflecting on what has happened in the past two days and struggle with the enormity of the stir he's created.

If nothing else, though, he knows the last two days have been fun. And if he continues to handle the situation with the kind of steadfastness and maturity he's displayed this week, it will continue to be fun.

And as for the gallery members who cheered his every move, called out his name, turned TPC Four Seasons Resort into Friday Afternoon Lights?

Spieth said it best -- "really cool."

"It's a new experience for me," he added. "I could get used to it."

So could the rest of us.