Who says practice makes perfect?
KOEPKA AND SPIETH AMONG LEADERS AT BRITISH OPEN DESPITE EXTENDED TIME OFF
If you’re a golfer whose envy gland flared seeing Brooks Koepka hold the U. S. Open trophy last month, beware, because it actually gets much worse. It turns out that after he mauled the U.S. Open field by four shots in Wisconsin, he proceeded to Las Vegas with some chums and had what Koepka described only as “fun” while grinning in a way that could have stoked further envy.
He reckons he made it home by July 1 or so. He did get to the gym, but played almost zero golf. “You’re going to laugh when I tell you,” he said. “I played once with my manager.” He believes that occurred on July 6 or 7, the first time he’d touched a club since June 18. He touched a club again for a photo shoot, then practised here last Saturday and Sunday.
He went out Thursday and shot 5-under-par 65 in the British Open. What a loathsome individual. The harmlessness of a respite got a big display in the first round of the 146th Open Championship from two bright- light Americans whose presence atop the leaderboard should have wreaked a mass uh- oh. Koepka had not competed in five weeks.
Two-time major champion Jordan Spieth had not competed in four. In the gusty drear of the morning and then the breezy sunshine of midday amid the rude crosswinds near the Irish Sea, they shot their 65s. Spieth sprinkled the course with his humongous talent as with his approach shot to the diabolical No. 6 and his up- anddown from a bunker on No. 16.
Koepka eagled No. 17 from a terrible lie in a rake mark in a bunker.
If they were rusty, you’d hate to see greased. Joining them atop the leaderboard was Matt Kuchar, who matched the best front- nine score ever at Royal Birkdale with 29, the same score recorded by Ian Baker-Finch in 1991 when he won the claret jug.
One of two Canadians in the field, Austin Connelly of Nova Scotia, fired a 3-under 67 to sit among a group of six at two back. The other Canadian, Adam Hadwin of Abbotsford, B.C., finished the day with a 1-over-par 71, tied for 58th. The world’s No. 1 player Dustin Johnson also was at 1 over.
No British Open champion this century has come in after more than three weeks idle from competition and only two ( Stewart Cink and David Duval) have had it as long as three. Every Open champion this decade has come in straight from some fracas that ended the previous Sunday — the Scottish Open for six of them, the John Deere Classic for the other.
In their rarity, Koepka and Spieth have something else in common: Both won last time out. Koepka somehow distanced himself singularly from a crowded leaderboard at the U. S. Open and one Sunday later Spieth holed that playoff bunker shot in Connecticut that turned the Travelers Championship into something even the non-nuts noticed.
“I’ve been putting in a lot of work with the putting and trying to get it back to the confidence that I’ve had the last couple of years,” said Spieth, whose past five majors drifted slightly, but not garishly from his impossible standard of 2015, when he won the Masters and the U. S. Open, placed second at the PGA Championship and tied for fourth at the British Open.
“It’s just been the one thing that’s been off this year. My ball striking has been better than in any years that I’ve ever played golf. It’s been about capitalizing, which is frustrating, considering I’m used to seeing the ball go in. And then I’m hitting it tighter, but it hasn’t been going in.
“But then we won three weeks ago and then I had some rest. So I feel rested and confident, which is a good feeling. It’s tough to have that feeling this late in the season. I thought that was an important break for me.”
Koepka’s case is much more exotic at age 27 ( four years beyond Spieth). He seems to have a singular inner motor that responds to the utmost challenge and finds tedium in depressurized situations. His major record is stellar even beyond that U. S. Open. He has entered 15 majors, made the top 20 nine times, the top 10 five times, the top five four times. He has missed the cut just twice and stopped doing that in 2013.
If he’s playing with friends or by himself, it’s just “hard to get up for it,” he said.
If he’s playing his father, he said, he’ll “shoot 75 every time or higher,” he said.
If he’s playing “four or five weeks in a row, everything just seems to be nonchalant, I guess you could say,” he said.
“You get to be in the routine and get used to it. And it just doesn’t seem — it just doesn’t ever seem like I’m fully ready to play,” he said. “If you take some time off and kind of recharge mentally, physically, I feel like I’m in really good shape right now, even with that time off mentally. It’s nice to come back. You get excited to play golf. And anytime you’re excited, you’re extremely focused when you’re out here.”