Ewen Murray reflects on Brooks Koepka’s impressive start to the week at the PGA Championship and looks at why he excels in major tournaments.
I've seen many great rounds in my time, but I honestly never imagined that a 63 was possible out there around Bethpage Black. To go around here without dropping a shot and making seven birdies along the way, was simply phenomenal golf.
At the start of the day, I believed that if someone went out and shot 66 then they would end the day top of the leaderboard, but Koepka went and bettered that by three! The whole round, from start to finish, was just so impressive.
The 62 that Branden Grace shot at Royal Birkdale was under real threat, which is amazing considering he didn't take apart the par-fives like you would expect and some of his birdies came at the toughest holes.
He was simply brilliant from tee-to-green and when he made a mistake, as he did at four, he just got it back in play and accepted his par.
Koepka has a temperament where he never gets too high or low on the golf course, to the point where he relishes the big events and ambles around like it's a straightforward round of golf.
Ahead of this week, Koepka used an old Nicklaus phrase about how major championships are easier to win, because half of the field don't believe they can really win them, but he genuinely looks like that when he plays in a major.
We would have expected one the likes of Rory McIlroy or Dustin Johnson to find a 66 or 67 after seeing that score from Koepka, but it seemed to put the breaks on a lot of the field and leave them struggling to find the spark to light the flame.
Danny Lee posting a six-under 64 in the afternoon showed there was a score out there for the afternoon starters, but Koepka's 63 caused a shock and seemed to have an effect on the majority of the field.
If you offered any of the field an opening-round 70, I think a huge percentage would haven taken it, but the problem when someone shoots a 63 is that a 70 suddenly seems very ordinary!
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