Brooks Koepka sets opening-round pace in PGA Championship with course-record 63
The defending PGA champion raced out to a 4-stroke lead over the half of the field that teed off in the morning and became the first player in PGA history to card more than one round of 63. Masters champion Tiger Woods had a 72.
FARMINGDALE, N.Y. – Brooks Koepka made it look so easy, one would have thought he was playing a practice round for a weekly PGA Tour stop, not the opening round of a major championship.
Confident and precise, Koepka exhibited a truly dominant round of golf Thursday at the PGA Championship. The defending champion navigated the 18 difficult holes at Bethpage Black without a bogey and established a course record with a 7-under-par 63 to take a 1-stroke lead after Day 1.
The 29-year-old Koepka, also a two-time U.S. Open winner, drained his seventh and final birdie on a 35-foot putt at his last hole, No. 9 on the 7,406-yard Black course, and became the first player to card more than one round of 63 in a PGA, matching his second-round score in last year’s event at Bellerive in St. Louis.
In fact, he felt his score could have been better. He did not birdie either of the layout’s two par-5′s.
“That was disappointing because I felt like those are holes you should be able to birdie,” he said. “I definitely could reach [No.] 4 but I hit a bad drive there. And then 13, I can get there, too, I just hit it in the bunker. Then the second hole today, my 11th hole, I missed about a five-footer. That would have been nice to shoot 60. I guess that would have been pretty good.”
Koepka was able to better all but one of his 155 fellow competitors by at least four strokes. The exception was 28-year-old Danny Lee, who had the most birdies – eight, including each of the last two holes – and climbed into contention with a 64.
On a mostly sunny day over a damp course, a total of 16 contestants carded subpar scores. England’s Tommy Fleetwood was alone in third place with a 67, and Luke List, Chez Reavie, and Mike Lorenzo-Vega were deadlocked at 68 in fourth place.
Jordan Spieth, who needs to win here to complete the career Grand Slam, birdied two of his last three holes for a 69 to lead an eight-player group that included crowd favorite Phil Mickelson, world No. 1 Dustin Johnson, and Rickie Fowler.
Masters champion Tiger Woods, seeking his second major title of the season and 16th of his career, doubled-bogeyed two holes on his first nine, then went 4-under on a four-hole stretch that included an eagle before bogeying three of his last five holes to finish at 72.
Koepka, who is 25-under par for his last six PGA rounds, said his putting “hasn’t felt this good in a long time.” And his confidence is at an all-time high.
“I’ve never been this confident,” he said. “I think I'm still learning, understanding my game, and I've figured it out. I think over the next few years, I'm excited for what's to come. I understand a lot more about my misses, where to hit it, and major championships I just suck it up.
“You don't always have to aim at the flag like you do in regular events. Sometimes it's just about how few bogeys and doubles you make this week.”
Lee, the world’s 119th-ranked player, came out of nowhere to get the closest to Koepka over the first 18 holes. Although he hit just 10 greens in regulation, he birdied eight of those holes, including the last two. He did not have a birdie putt of longer than 15 feet and drained five of 10 feet or less.
He birdied three of the Black course’s four par-3’s.
“My iron game has been always good, and I always have a lot of confidence” in it, he said. “I guess I really liked the pin locations today, what they gave us, and I was able to go straight at it every single time.”