Brooks Koepka hits out of a bunker on the tenth gap at Los Angeles Country Club on Thursday.
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LOS ANGELES — He advised us so. Sorta.
Two days earlier than this U.S. Open, Brooks Koepka was waxing poetic on majors and his nearly uncanny degree of success in them. It’s not that Koepka isn’t expert sufficient to have received 5 of golf’s largest occasions, together with final month’s PGA Championship, and at the very least contend in many of the others he’s performed in. It’s simply that the opposite dudes can’t.
So what’s the attraction, Brooks?
“I just love when I guess maybe somewhere closer to even par wins,” he said Tuesday. “If it’s going to be a birdiefest the place 20-, 21-under wins, that’s actually not the type. I actually don’t even suppose I’ve competed in lots of golf occasions over my profession the place that’s occurred.
“But if you look at I would say maybe the majority of my wins, they’re all pretty much 10-under and less, which is kind of suited to major championship golf. I feel like — I just feel like I can outlast everybody when it comes to having to par things to death or just kind of wearing guys out on the golf course and just mentally beating you and knowing when it’s my time to kind of take that opportunity and go with it. I think being patient is a big thing with that, as well, and just knowing when to go after a flag or when to play cautious.”
Then they put the golf balls within the air right here on Thursday at Los Angeles Country Club.
And the third main of the yr bizarrely was the John Deere Classic.
And Koepka was wanting up at a slew of names on the leaderboard. And you had to look down a bit to discover him. He shot a one-over 71 throughout spherical one, and that’s respectable after they play this stuff at Shinnecock or Oakmont. But this isn’t meant to demean LACC, one of many best ballparks in all of golf. It’s simply that the world’s finest went nuclear.
Record-breaking scores? 37 gamers underneath par? What’s occurring on the U.S. Open?!
Josh Berhow
Rickie Fowler and Xander Schauffele every shot eight-under 62s. In all, the gamers broke the U.S. Open first-round scoring common. It was the “birdiefest” Koepka feared, and his outcomes adopted swimsuit, although you may’t in all probability level to solely that as the rationale for his sluggish play. Across the board, he was off — 121st in Strokes Gained: Off the Tee; sixty fifth in SG: Tee to Green; 92nd in SG: Approach; and ninetieth in SG: Putting. He was three over after six holes, rallied with two birdies on 8 and 9, however solely parred from there.
Late within the spherical, his temper over the proceedings was clear. On his strategy into the par-4 sixteenth, he leaned over and seemed down. Same factor on the par-4 seventeenth. When issues are going proper, Koepka stares this stuff down, which he did on the par-4 finisher — solely to miss a 34-footer for birdie. When he was achieved, he discovered his spouse, Jena, signed a ball for his normal bearer, then took three questions from a handful of reporters. He said he didn’t deserve to shoot a lot better. He said he could rebound.
At final month’s PGA, he opened with a two-over 72, then went 66, 66 and 67 at Oak Hill Country Club, however there he was six again after 18. Here he’s 9. He’s began gradual in different majors, too, most notably on the 2018 U.S. Open at Shinnecock, the place he shot a first-round 75, then rallied to win. Still, there’s this nugget: Only one participant, in accordance to NBC, has overcome Koepka’s present deficit after spherical one and received — Jack Fleck, in 1955.
“Yeah, it just means I got to play really good the next three days,” Koepka said. “Go out tomorrow, morning circumstances, hopefully it’s a little softer, little simpler and play a little higher.
A reporter then requested: “Brooks, you see a couple 62s on the board before you even get a chance to tee off, does that change your mindset?” — to which he replied: “It doesn’t matter — playing the golf course, not them.”
And then he was off to the vary.
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