MEMPHIS, Tenn. – Brooks Koepka showed up at the WGC-FedEx St. Jude Invitational, practically the last place golf fans have witnessed his brand of brilliance, and suddenly rediscovered his game as if it were waiting for him in TPC Southwind’s lost and found.
There’s nothing like a hot putting round to make everything better. Koepka birdied the first four holes of his round, the longest streak of his career to begin a round, and barely slowed down en route to shooting an 8-under-par 62 at TPC Southwind for a two-stroke lead over Rickie Fowler and Brendon Todd.
“Everything seemed to click,” Koepka said. “It’s all just the work we’ve put in over the last three weeks of countless hours of beating balls and on the putting green.”
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Koepka hasn’t won on the PGA Tour since winning here a year ago, and entered the week ranked No. 155 in the FedEx Cup standing and in danger of missing the playoffs, which begin in three weeks. On Thursday, he picked up where he left off last year when he out-dueled Rory McIlroy in the final round and looked nothing like the golfer who took 32 putts and tossed his putter in frustration at one point as he lost more than five strokes to the field on the greens last week in the second round at the 3M Open.
“He putted as bad as I’ve ever seen him putt,” Koepka’s full-swing instructor, Claude Harmon III, said.
For a share of the lead.@BKoepka is walking them in at the @WGCFedEx. 😯#QuickHits pic.twitter.com/46DWSxiXSU
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Over the weekend and on Monday, Koepka spent time with Harmon and teacher Pete Cowen and fixed his swing. But putting remained a bugaboo. Before the St. Jude got under way, Koepka brooded that his putting touch had abandoned him. He entered the week ranked 140th on Tour in Strokes Gained: putting this season. Koepka realized he was drawing the blade back inside, which made it difficult to release properly.
During a practice session on the putting green on Wednesday, Koepka asked Harmon if he thought it made sense to have Phil Kenyon, who specializes in putting instruction and whose students include Gary Woodland, Tommy Fleetwood and Justin Rose, take a look at his stroke. Harmon supported the idea, which led Koepka to approach the wizard in the black arts of putting and say, “Listen, I’m struggling pretty bad and need your help. There’s a reason you’re the best out here.”
Kenyon made a series of adjustments which Koepka described: “You always know my ball sits off the toe, so that’s changed, it’s over the center – over the line now. My heel is usually off the ground and it’s no longer off the ground. Just the way my left hand kind of works through the putting stroke has become a little bit different. It was kind of the same issue.”
Koepka practiced under the watchful eye of Kenyon for two hours after a rainstorm passed. It did wonders for Koepka on Thursday, although in typical Koepka fashion, he was none too surprised.
“My hand-eye coordination’s pretty good, so I figured it’d be all right,” he said. “My college coach did a drill with me I remember back in college, it doesn’t matter where you line up, whatever is, you can almost will it in just pretty much every time.”
If there’s a will, there’s a way and on Thursday, Koepka made quite an impression. He gained more than three strokes on the green, and ranked fourth-best in the field of 78. He reeled in four birdies out of the gate, beginning with a 9-foot birdie putt at the first and a 23-footer at the fourth. A bogey at the seventh when he missed the fairway to the right was his lone hiccup of the day, but he bounced back with birdies at Nos. 8 and 9 to make the turn in 5-under 30.
Koepka’s clean card on his second nine included an 18-foot birdie at the par-3 11th, a 7-footer at 13, and a two-putt birdie at the par-5 16th. Add it up and it marks the first 18-hole lead for Koepka since he won the PGA Championship last May.
“It feels good to be back to normal,” Koepka said.
How or why a golfer suddenly rediscovers a lethal putting stroke is an enduring mystery. Still to be seen is if Koepka can keep it going.
“One of the things Brooks always says is, ‘I’m not that far away,’ ” Harmon said. “It comes off a lot of times as him being super arrogant, but it’s not. He really believes in himself.”
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