The PGA Championship prides itself on being the best field in golf, and it doesn’t seems like those with pedigree are going to let Brooks Koepka run away with it.
With the defending PGA champ getting into the clubhouse early with a scalding 7-under 63, there was an impressive group sitting at 1-under just waiting to strike. It included major champions Phil Mickelson, Jason Day, Jordan Speith and Dustin Johnson, along with fan-favorite Rickie Fowler.
“It’s Bethpage. You know, I feel like there’s going to be more bogeys than birdies out here,” Day said. “So it’s the first day, and we’ve just got to be patient with ourselves. There’s a lot of golf to be played, especially for the guys at the top of the leaderboard and the guys that are just trying to make the cut or in the middle.
“You can be 2-, 3-over and still have a good shot at the end of Sunday if you play some decent golf here on in.”
That might have been a reference to Rory McIlroy, who shot 2-over 72 while rounding out one of the marquee afternoon threesomes with Day and Mickelson. McIlroy just couldn’t get it going, but Day and Mickelson managed to both come back with 2-under 33 on their back nine, keeping them within striking distance of Koepka.
“It was a heck of a round,” Mickelson said of Koepka, “but you just can’t get caught up in that because it’s such a difficult test that if you don’t stay in the moment, you’ll make a big number.”
Mickelson remains a darling among the New York crowds, and joked a lot of fans were showing their calves to him — Mickelson is known for having strangely large calves — which was “a little awkward.”
He also seemed to tweak his right elbow hacking out of the rough on 18, but said, “It feels fine now.”
Spieth, meanwhile, managed to bounce back from a double-bogey at the long par-4 10th, posting a birdie at 18 to get into red figures. It matched his playing partner, Johnson, who seemed to almost cruise around with just one bogey — on the rather benign first hole — to go with two birdies.
“I drove it pretty well, so I’m very pleased with the driving,” Johnson said. “Make a few more putts, that’s about it. But you can always make more putts.”
So the group might be six shots back of the leader, the man who has won two of the past four majors. But it is an impressive group, and should prove to be worthy of chasing down Koepka.
“You know, the funny thing is you never know where Brooks could be at the end of the week. He could be outside the top 10, outside the top 20, just depending on how he plays the next few days,” Day said. “You can play tremendous golf one day and then wake up the next day and not know where it’s going. That’s just how golf is.
“And I’m not saying that Brooks is going to do that. I think he’s playing some tremendous golf, especially coming off last week and playing some good golf at Augusta. There’s a lot of good momentum for him. But golf is just kind of like a finicky game when it comes to playing one day and then waking up the next day and having no idea how to play.”
https://nypost.com/2019/05/17/pga-championship-many-of-golfs-biggest-names-lurking-after-first-round/
2019-05-17 06:10:00Z
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