PITTSFORD, N.Y. — Brooks Koepka has his health back, along with his swagger. Now he gets another chance to restore his reputation as golf’s toughest customer in the toughest championships.
Oak Hill was every bit of that on a rainy Saturday in the PGA Championship, and Koepka was up to the task. With three big birdies over the last seven holes, Koepka had a 4-under 66 — the low round at Oak Hill for the second straight day — to build a one-shot lead over Viktor Hovland and Corey Conners.
“I like it when it’s difficult. Today was super difficult,” Koepka said. And then with the slightest grin he added, “I’ll take 4 under.”
Now he has to finish it off, just like he did with such great poise when he won back-to-back in the U.S. Open (2017-18) and then back-to-back in the PGA Championship (2018-19), earning the rank of “Major Brooks.”
This is his second straight 54-hole lead in a major. He was two ahead at the Masters until playing it safe in the final round and closing with a 75 as Jon Rahm tracked him down and beat him by four shots.
“I know what I did,” Koepka said. “I promise I won’t show up like that tomorrow.”
It wasn’t just the Masters.
Koepka was two behind Dustin Johnson going into the final round of the 2020 PGA Championship at Harding Park when he boldly said, “When I’ve been in this position before, I’ve capitalized. He’s only won one. I’m playing good. I don’t know, we’ll see.” And then he shot 74 and tied for 29th. A year later, he played in the final group with Phil Mickelson at Kiawah Island in the PGA Championship, played the par 5s in 4 over and shot 74 to finish second.
Koepka has looked so strong that he has made only two bogeys the last two rounds, as pivotal as his 10 birdies on an Oak Hill course that’s a brute even in pleasant weather. Only nine players broke par on Saturday. He was more than 6 1/2 strokes better than the average score.
The last player to have the low score in the second and third rounds of a major championship was Tiger Woods in the 1997 Masters, which he won by a record 12 shots.
Koepka, who was at 6-under 204, won’t have it that easy.
Conners played Oak Hill like a U.S. Open — that’s what this PGA Championship feels like — by opening with two birdies and 13 pars that kept him in front for so much of the wet, grueling day. And then one swing changed everything.
He was in a bunker right of the 16th fairway when he hit the ball so thin that it disappeared into the lip of the soggy turf. Conners wasn’t sure where it went, looking up as if it had bounced out toward the fairway.
It was plugged deep in the sod, and Conners had to drop it in gnarly rough on top of a mound framing the bunker. He did well to advance that toward the green into more thick grass and took double bogey.