Didn’t take long for Brooks Koepka to make up the stagger start.
Didn’t take long for the world’s No. 1 and toughest man on the golfing planet to square things up at East Lake.
The first round of the FedEx Cup Finale, aka the Tour Championship is in the books and it didn’t take long for Justin Thomas to lose his top-seed advantage.
Eighteen holes are done and it’s almost looking like a regular head-to-head, all men are created equal golf tournament.
“It’s nice to close that gap on day one,” said a confident-looking Koepka after signing his card for a 67 that did indeed close the three-shot gap he started with on the first tee. “Yeah, you look at the leaderboard now and everything looks the way it should be,” said Koepka, who obviously believes the way things “should be” include him with a share of the first round lead.
He’s now at 10-under, tied with Thomas, who missed fairways, missed a pair of three-foot birdie putts and hit his pitching wedge tee shot at the 150-yard 15th into the drink.
“It was a little frustrating,” said the top seed, who missed most of the fairways on Thursday along with what he called “the dumb mistake on 15.” That dumb mistake resulted in a double-bogey and set the wheels in motion to invite a bunch of players into this scuffle for $15 million.
If you had to pick just one guy right now, Koepka looks more than capable of crushing the rest. “Overall, pretty solid, I’m pleased with it,” was how Koepka described his day, a day where he made three birdies over his final four holes to get his share of the top spot.
Round of the day belonged to the X-man — Xander Schauffele — who is no stranger to performing on this course. He won the 2017 Tour Championship on his way to earning Rookie Of The Year honors. A rookie no more, he looks ready to win this week and would have had the solo lead had he not missed from just inside six feet for a birdie at 18 that would have given him a 63. Still, his 64 made up the six shots he spotted Thomas and put him with Brooks and J.T. at 10-under.
“Pissed me off enough to keep up the focus and come out firing tomorrow,” Schauffele said of that miss. “Missing that putt at 18, I’m not super-satisfied with that round.”
Wow.
Rory McIlroy, like Schauffele, missed a six-footer for birdie at 18 otherwise it would have been a foursome at 10-under. Rory was the only player in the top five along with Koepka to shoot a sub-par score. He’s done at nine-under and as a former winning of the FedEx Cup, knows what it takes to get things done on Sunday.
What has transpired at East Lake after just 18 holes is that this run for the $15 million has fallen into the mindset of Koepka. Remember that he’s the guy who believes majors are easier to win because he only has to beat a handful of guys.
Well, right now, Brooksie only has to beat a handful of guys.
We’ll know more when 36-holes are finished today.
As for now, you have the five guys at or near the top, you’ve got Kooch The Caddie Mooch (aka Matt Kuchar) and Pat Cantlay at eight-under, Hideki Matsuyama at seven with Paul Casey and Patrick Reed at six.
Odds are, one of those guys among the first round top 10 will hoist the FedEx Cup on Sunday.
2 Comments
baxter cepeda
Those 2 short misses and that terrible water ball from Jt really has a lot of people with a chance. There’s was always going to be some chasers but If jt pulls those three shots off its over for so many. He has to be kicking himself.
Tom Edrington
We all kick ourselves all the time when we do stupid stuff on the course, don’t we?