Brooks Koepka drawing heavy betting action at The Honda Classic

NASSAU, Bahamas – What’s old is new again. At the risk of succumbing to pre-pandemic nostalgia, next year could recall the golden days of 2019. Brooks Koepka and Rory McIlroy, who dominated – Koepka won PGA of America Player of the Year, McIlroy PGA TOUR POY – are showing glimpses of their old form. “I worked my tail off over the last two months and I see the light at the end of the tunnel,” said Koepka, who shot a second-round 67 to reach 10 under, one behind Bryson DeChambeau (64) halfway through the Hero World Challenge at Albany Golf Club. McIlroy, who won in his only official TOUR start in the fall (THE CJ CUP @ SUMMIT), and who shot a 71 and is four back, is playing so well he said he wished it was March. He’s swinging too well, he added, to risk mothballing the clubs for an extended period over Christmas. Both players are former world No. 1s, four-time major winners, and in their early 30s. (Koepka is 31, McIlroy 32.) What brought them down to earth, though, was not any one thing. Koepka was slowed by leg and hip injuries and missed parts of the last two seasons. He qualified for but did not play in the 2019 Presidents Cup, missed THE PLAYERS Championship last season, and admits his results were generally lacking. And frustrating. “Not good enough for me,” he said. On the plus side, he won the Waste Management Phoenix Open last season, and beat Bryson DeChambeau in The Match in Las Vegas last week. Koepka also loves what he’s seen so far from his Cleveland Golf and Srixon gear, especially the ball. He will go into holiday mode after the Hero, to return at the Sentry Tournament of Champions in Maui in January. When will he go from very close to totally back? “If I wasn’t going on a family vacation,” he said, “putting the clubs away next week, I think by the end of next week I’d have it.” With his health and his game returning, it’s not unreasonable to wonder if he’s about to turn back the clock to ’19, when he successfully defended his PGA Championship title among three total wins; was runner-up at the Masters and U.S. Open; racked up nine top-10s; and led the Comcast Business TOUR TOP 10 as the regular-season FedExCup points leader. Could he get back to peak Brooks Koepka, circa 2018 and ’19? “That wasn’t peak,” he said. “Just wait.” McIlroy’s swoon was more his own doing. Noting the way DeChambeau was mauling courses, especially at the U.S. Open at Winged Foot, the Northern Irishman went on a quest to find more distance. He also changed coaches. Alas, neither move paid dividends. Although McIlroy won the Wells Fargo Championship in the spring, the first time he’d won the same TOUR event three times, he battled inconsistency. It all reached a crescendo in a deflating Ryder Cup performance that left McIlroy in tears as the European side got flattened by the Americans. Regrouping, McIlroy went back to his coach since boyhood, Michael Bannon, and the things that had made him great. The results followed as he captured THE CJ CUP, becoming the 39th player to reach 20 wins on TOUR. He had one hand on the trophy at the DP World Tour Championship in Dubai before a bad break – his approach shot clanking off the pin and into a bunker at the 15th hole – sent him into a tailspin. He signed for a 74 (T6) and ripped his shirt in frustration. Golf has an uncanny way of presenting players with the same situation that just got the better of them, and McIlroy got another chance to lose his cool as he doubled the 9th hole Thursday. Instead of folding, though, he rallied, playing the back nine in 5 under par. “I really turned a corner after the Ryder Cup,” he said. Now he wants to find the consistency that defined his game in ’19, when his TOUR-leading 14 top-10 finishes in 19 starts, and three victories – including THE PLAYERS and TOUR Championship – yielded his second FedExCup title. He also won the Byron Nelson Award for adjusted scoring average (69.057) for the third time in his career. “Just being me is good enough,” he said at THE CJ CUP, “and maybe the last few months I was trying – not to be someone else, but maybe trying to add things to my game or take things away from my game. I know that when I do the things that I do well, this is what I’m capable of. “I’m capable of winning a lot of events on the PGA TOUR,” he continued, “and being the best player in the world.” Koepka could say the same. The way things are going at the Hero and elsewhere, and given the growing confidence of both players, it may not be long before one of the headliners from 2019 has climbed back to the top of the ziggurat. Then again, if recent history is any indication, it could be both.

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ORLANDO – What happened to Graeme McDowell? This is a question that McDowell, 39, has gone to great lengths to try to answer, and is still trying to answer in real time. Mr. Everything in 2010, when he won the U.S. Open, the decisive point for Europe in the Ryder Cup, and two events on the European Tour, he has accrued just one top-10 finish in his last 47 PGA TOUR starts. His T10 at the 2017 Shriners Hospitals for Children seems like a long time ago, and a highlight unworthy of his talent. “I think people would look at me the last four or five years and say that I’ve got caught up in other things and lost my focus on what I’m doing,â€� McDowell told the PGA TOUR recently. “Is that true or false? Did I get married and have children? Yeah. Did that take my focus off what I was doing? Maybe.â€� And yet here is McDowell again, trying to dig himself out, as he put it after carding a 4-under 68 in the first round of the Arnold Palmer Invitational presented by Mastercard. He was T3 after the first round, his best start since the 2015 World Golf Championships-Bridgestone Invitational (now WGC-FedEx St. Jude Invitational), when he shot 66 and went on to finish T17. McDowell is scheduled to tee off Friday at 1:19 p.m. ET. It’s been a busy week so far. D.A. Points and Francesco Molinari each aced the par-3 seventh hole. There were 94 balls hit in the water in round one, the most of any round at Bay Hill since 2003. Phil Mickelson tried to hit a right-handed shot through a mesh fence, and failed. Still, the longest accounting of this Arnold Palmer Invitational was McDowell’s two-plus-page transcript after the first round. The recipient of the 2014 ASAP Sports/Jim Murray Award for accommodating the media, he’s always been one of the game’s great talkers. “Interesting to see a lot of Europeans playing well here,â€� he said, presciently. He was talking about Spain’s Rafa Cabrera Bello, who fired an opening 65, but, in a way, also predicting the second-round surge of England’s Tommy Fleetwood (66, 9-under total), who shot into the lead. “It’s a real fairway-and-green golf course,â€� McDowell added. “The rough’s very penal this week, and the greens are very firm.â€� Every course has seemed penal for McDowell of late, and true to form, he has owned up to it, for he is not only verbose, he is candid. (Somewhere there’s a television career out there with his name on it.) Thursday brought more gems from G-Mac, who has lived at nearby Lake Nona since shortly after his runner-up at the 2005 API. He laughed about a complication of sleeping in your own bed during a tournament: trying to get the kids to go to sleep. “It’s literally just life,â€� he said of his slow fade over last five years or so. “Life. Life just got in the way. Mostly the family stuff, and I don’t think I ever sat back and rested on my laurels and thought I was — I just, my practice changed. The time that I was giving to the game changed and I was less effective in what I was doing. It snuck up on me. “It sort of happened before I realize it had happened,â€� he added. How many golfers are that self-reflective? How many athletes? How many people? Still, there are all sorts of reasons to be excited if you’re McDowell, who is playing out of the 125-150 category from last season’s FedExCup. He’s twice finished runner-up at Bay Hill, including 2012, when he shot a 9-under 63 in the second round and earned a final-round pairing with Tiger Woods. (McDowell finished second to Woods, five back.) And he’s playing better than his results indicate at 117th in the FedExCup and 259th in the world. Also, the U.S. Open will return to Pebble Beach, site of his 2010 victory. (He’s already in the field thanks to his 10-year exemption.) And The Open Championship will be held near his boyhood home at Royal Portrush, Northern Ireland. He’s not in that field, but could earn a spot as the API is now part of the Open Qualifying Series; the top three finishers in the top 10 not otherwise qualified will earn spots in the field. McDowell only found this out Tuesday. He doesn’t want to obsess, so he’s trying not to think about it. “It’s hard to do because I want it really badly,â€� he said. “I want to be back up there competing with these guys and I do feel like I have some good stuff in me. But I’ve had to ask myself some pretty hard questions the last couple years. Thankfully, I’ve came to the conclusion that if it was all gone, I would miss it. So, you know what, let’s try and enjoy it while it’s here. “It’s an opportunity,â€� he added. “It’s not an opportunity to beat my head against the wall, it’s an opportunity to try and dig myself out of a hole and look at that challenge as something to be enjoyed, and it’s going to be very rewarding when I do get out of it.â€�

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PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Fla. – The blood was pumping in his ears as he felt the eyes of the world drill into him. Somewhere in the distance, he heard laughter. Russell Knox had been climbing the leaderboard when he hit his tee shot in the water at the par-3 17th in the third round of THE PLAYERS Championship last year. Then he hit a second one in the drink, and a third. He finally made a 9. The gaffe sent him spiraling out of contention, from 8 under and tied for fifth place to 2 under and — well, it didn’t matter anymore. “The green felt like it was the size of a quarter,” he said afterward. Whatever else you want to say about THE PLAYERS — best field in golf, toughest tournament to win — it is also a theater of human frailty. One minute you’re in contention, the next you’re in a YouTube video. Knox agonized. Then he shrugged. Finally, he laughed. “I’d just thrown myself out of the tournament, so it was either react the way I did or be miserable in front of the local fans,” he says now. “I took the ‘make fun of myself’ approach.” His sense of humor helped, but so did the fact that he wasn’t alone. Not hardly. On Friday, Anirban Lahiri came to the 18th hole at even par and about to make the cut. He promptly pumped three balls in the water and made a 10 to miss by a mile. A single lapse at THE PLAYERS can escalate into utter chaos anytime, but especially on the weekend, when the cameras and other distractions multiply, and hazards (and the $1.89 million winner’s check) loom larger. This year there’s even more treachery on the back nine: water left of the short par-4 12th, where some will try to drive the green, which tilts toward the trouble — as if there isn’t already enough of it on this confounding Pete Dye course. ‘Wall of death’ In the third round in 2011, Graeme McDowell took a three-shot lead to the 18th hole. With a par to close out his round, which was being completed Sunday morning due to weather delays, he would add a sparkling 66 to early rounds of 67-69. Then it all went wrong. “I hit it about a yard in the right rough,” McDowell says. “The pin was in that middle-right spot and I couldn’t get to it, so I pitched my ball right on the front edge of the green, right where you’re supposed to, and there’s this wall of death there, this tier, and it went across the green and in the water and I made double. It’s still one of the worst breaks of my career. “I went from being three ahead to one ahead,” McDowell adds. “An hour and a half, two hours later I came out so deflated for the last round and had a really bad day.” McDowell shot a final-round 79 to finish T-33. Rory McIlroy says he learned the hard way to curb his aggressive instincts, missing the cut at TPC Sawgrass in his first three starts in 2009, 2010 and 2012. “I’ve definitely limited the amount of drivers I’ve hit,” McIlroy says, noting that the Stadium Course features several pinch points at 300 yards. Although his driving has historically set him apart, he adds, he’s had to come to terms with “hitting the ball in the same positions as everyone else off the tee and then trying to beat them in from there. It’s that sort of golf course.” McIlroy’s results since he accepted that fact: T-8, T-6, T-8, T-12. He also made the cut this week and hopes to chase down the leaders on the weekend. “You have to plot your way around,” says Chez Reavie, who shot 68-72 in the first two rounds this week and is in contention to win on the PGA TOUR for the first time since the 2008 RBC Canadian Open. “You can miss by two yards and it kicks down and you’ve got no chance. The biggest thing is when you’re in trouble, just hit the shot to get you out of trouble instead of trying the miracle shot. Just take your bogey.” Of course that is easier said than done, especially at the 17th hole, where there’s no place to miss on its island green. Of those who have played the 17th at least eight times, just five of the 146 players in this PLAYERS field came into the week having never missed it: Graham DeLaet (16 of 16), Daniel Summerhays (14), Scott Brown (12), David Lingmerth (8) and Reavie (8). DeLaet increased his streak to 18 after the first two rounds; alas, he missed the cut. Think of 17, though, and you probably don’t think of those names. Instead, you recall the fates of Len Mattiace (8 in 1998), Sean O’Hair (7 in 2007) and Sergio Garcia (7 in 2013), all of whom wrecked their title chances there in the final round. Or Knox, who suffered his memorable disaster in the penultimate round last year. Sometimes tragic, always expensive, their wipeouts at the slickest turn on the track were above all unforgettable. As a rule, the closer the player is to the lead — and the closer he is to the finish line — the faster and more indelibly it goes into PLAYERS lore if he crashes. Bob Tway was four off the lead when he made a record 12 on the hole in the third round in 2005. It was a hole to forget, but it could have been worse. He could have been playing the final round, in the lead, with every deep breath and nervous fidget being broadcast around the globe. ‘There’s no bailout’ In the board game Scrabble, it is said that two-letter words are “the glue of the game.” Similarly, short putts are “the glue of the game” for players trying to keep it together under extreme pressure, says 1999 PLAYERS champion and Golf Channel analyst David Duval. “Probably the 14th,” Duval says, when asked if there was a hole where he felt he was on the verge of potentially falling apart. “I was struggling. I don’t remember what all happened on every shot, but I ended up making like a 5-footer for bogey. I’m over it, I’m basically like, If you want to win this tournament, you’ve got to make this putt. “And you have to make them through the week. You can’t let the 4- and 5-footers get away from you here because you have a lot of them — for birdie, for par and for bogey. If you miss one or two for the week, that’d be about it. After that, you’re not going to win.” Adam Scott remembers the 10-foot bogey putt that won him THE PLAYERS in 2004. “You’ve got to manage yourself so well at Sawgrass, whether you’re playing good, bad or indifferent, because there are a lot of big numbers that can happen,” says Scott, who is within reach of the lead entering Saturday at 2 under (70-72). “You’ve got to play very smart, play within yourself the last two or three holes. It’s brutal through there because there’s no bail-out.” In 2004, Scott, then 23, led by as many as five shots in the final round. Then, playing well ahead of Scott, Padraig Harrington finished with six 3s to shoot 66. “All of a sudden,” Scott says, “my cruising around with a four-shot lead became two.” He bogeyed 14 and missed the green at 15, his ball nestling into a grassy hole left of the green, but he chipped it tight to save par. “A huge relief,” he says. Alas, the relief was short-lived. For all of the publicity 17 has gotten over the years, 18 is arguably harder. Water beckons on the tee shot, and for players who hit dry land but wind up in the right rough, water beckons again on the second shot. Scott hit what he calls “a beautiful 2-iron off the tee, which was way forward back then, and had about 200 yards in to that back pin.” He tried to chase a 6-iron onto the green and came over the top of it, his ball splashing down in the water as the crowd gasped. Now he looked like he was headed for a final-hole double-bogey to tie Harrington at 11-under 277, forcing a playoff. “At those times,” Scott says, “you’ve got to somehow think to yourself, wow, if somebody gave me a chip and a putt to win THE PLAYERS, I’d be pretty chuffed with that.” He gathered himself, remembered to breathe, and from 39 yards got up and down for bogey to win. For the weekend leaders at THE PLAYERS Stadium Course at TPC Sawgrass, where watery doom lurks at every turn, the highest form of living can be simply refusing to die.

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