Farmingdale, N. Y. — The power. The putting. The poise. Brooks Koepka has it all at…
Farmingdale, N. Y. — The power. The putting. The poise. Brooks Koepka has it all at this PGA Championship, along with the lowest 36-hole score in major championship history and the largest lead by anyone at the halfway point of a Grand Slam event in 85 years.
It was daunting to so many players who watched Koepka pull away to a seven-shot lead Friday at Bethpage Black.
And it looked all too familiar to Tiger Woods, who won’t be around to see the ending.
Koepka backed up his record-tying 63 with a round that put him in a league of his own. He opened with three birdies in a four-hole stretch and made three birdies over the closing four holes for a 5-under 65 that broke by two shots the lowest 36-hole score — 128 — in any major.
PGA CHAMPIONSHIP LIVE SCORING
Woods was along for the ride — a short one, in this case, because he missed the cut. He marveled at Koepka hitting 7-iron into a par 5, and a 9-iron into the uphill, 477-yard 15th hole.
“Relative to the field, I was about that long early in my career,” Woods said. “When you’re able to hit the ball much further than other players, and get on the right golf courses where setups like this is penalizing if you are a little bit crooked, and if he does miss it, he misses on the correct side, and he’s far enough down there to where he was able to get the ball on the green. And he did all the little things right.”
That describes Woods at Bethpage Black the first time this working man’s public course hosted a major at the 2002 U. S. Open. Woods went wire-to-wire when he was winning majors at an alarming rate.
Koepka, who has won three of the last seven majors, appears to be headed down a similar path.
Jordan Spieth had a 66 in the morning in a bid to keep in range. Adam Scott had a 64 in the afternoon.
