Koepka all alone after first LIV round

IG – LIV R1 Gamer

Writing from Bolingbrook, Illinois

Friday, September 13, 2024

Anyone who thought Bolingbrook Golf Club would be a pushover for the stars of the LIV Golf brigade were surprised as the first round played out.

The maintenance staff of the course and the LIV Golf setup crew had Bolingbrook playing as hard as it ever has, with greens approximately as hard as car hoods and fairways running like rabbits from a hunter. Add in a 12 mile-per-hour wind that jumped at times, and the greats and near-greats had their hands full with the Arthur Hills design.

Only Brooks Kopeka solved it completely, scoring 8-under-par 62, a course record, to lead Paul Casey by four and the duo of Abraham Ancer and Anirban Lahrio by five. A sevensome of notables, including Bryson DeChambeau, Dustin Johnson and Patrick Reed, are tied for fourth at 2-under 68.

Koepka won the previous LIV tournament at the Greenbrier and is chasing his third title of the season.

The end result: Only 18 of the 54 players finished under par, with another two at the par of 70, with the field averaging 71.111 strokes. The likely prospect for tomorrow: The players will have figured it out and go low, perhaps even Caleb Surratt, who finished double-bogey-triple-bogey and whose 10-over 80 was the day’s high.

“I can’t speak to the fairways because I didn’t hit many,” Koepka said. “But the greens, Ricky (Elliott, his caddie) said they firmed up a lot since Tuesday. It seemed like from the par-3 13th on, they were very firm. But I like it when a golf course is firm and fiery.”

Koepka surpassed the previous Bolingbrook course record of 63, set by Mac Meissner in the third round of a Forme Tour tournament in 2021.

“I putted really good,” said Koepka, who scattered eight birdies on his bogey-free card. “If a good player gets hot, he can shoot 62 pretty easy."

Koepka, more than good, has won five majors, including last year’s PGA Championship, so it’s hardly a surprise he’s leading the pack, but he birdied only one of his first seven holes before catching fire. Then he ran down birds in seven of his final 11 holes, including five of the last six and the last three. His 6-footer for a birdie on the par-4 second hole finished his round with a flourish. Amazingly, he said he hadn’t played the back nine, where he scored 5-under 30, until Friday.

“I tip my cap to him,” Casey said. “He did it in true Brooksy style. This is a different golf course than it’s been. The wind shifted, and the rules and grounds staff must have been under instruction to turn the water off. It turned shiny and glassy. I found it really difficult, suite honestly.

“I’m trying to stay alive. It’s like Monty Python getting hacked to pieces, leaving an arm and a leg here and there.”

The season championship race saw Jon Rahm and Joaquin Niemann flip their 1-2 placings by virtue of Niemann’s 2-under 68 to Rahm’s 1-under 69. Niemann is at 202.32, Rahm 198.33, but don’t memorize that, as it’ll likely go down to the final hole on Sunday, trying to solve the course and each other.

“It’s playing fast,” Niemann said of Bolingbrook.

“It was one of those days when my score was better than how I played,” Rahm said. “I know Brooks is 8-under but the other scores aren’t as low. I don’t recall ever playing fairways like that, so bouncy. It’s not the easiest to shoot low.”

No crowd size was announced, but it appeared to be no less than 8,000, with many fans lingering about the suites and hangouts like the Birdie Shack, for which there was an additional charge.

Around Bolingbrook

Lee Westwood had the shot of the day, a holeout from the fairway of the par-5 third for an eagle. He finished at 1-over 71. … The Crushers, captained by DeChambeau, lead the team standings. The overall team championship is next week. … Tyrrell Hatton let fly with the world’s most explicit Anglo-Saxon oath twice after poor shots, both of his own making. … There are a dozen major champions in the field, compared to seven in this week’s PGA Tour stop, the Procore Championship in Napa, California. … For kids on hand, a big draw will be the petting zoo near the fan entrance. … As has become a LIV tradition, a quartet of skydivers landed on the first fairway in advance of the shotgun start. … LIV has a management staff of 45, in addition to social media people and the television crew, on hand.

– Tim Cronin