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PORTRUSH, Northern Ireland – It’s a dichotomy that has a drastically different meaning to each player. Brooks Koepka and Jordan Spieth both save their best performances for majors. For Koepka, that disparity is by design. Spieth’s perplexing record is the result of a frustrating slump. The two American twenty-somethings with multiple majors are in contention at another one. They both shot 5-under 137 over the first 36 holes at Royal Portrush to sit three shots behind 36-hole leader J.B. Holmes. Spieth continued to struggle with his driver, but rode a hot putter to a 67 on Friday. Koepka showed us at Pebble Beach that he can win a major without his best performance on the putting surfaces. That was the case again Friday. Koepka is trying to continue a run of dominance that can be compared only to Tiger Woods and Jack Nicklaus. He has finished first or second in all three majors this year, and five of the last six. Adding the claret jug to his pair of U.S. Opens and PGAs would give him three legs of the career Grand Slam. He’s trying to become the first person since Tiger Woods to win multiple majors in consecutive seasons. RELATED: Leaderboard | Tee times | Tiger finishes 6 over after 36 holes For Spieth, The Open is a reminder of better times. His 2017 victory at Royal Birkdale represents his last win on the PGA TOUR. His best opportunities to add a 12th PGA TOUR victory have come in majors. He threatened Augusta National’s course record before bogeying the final hole of the 2018 Masters and falling two shots short of Patrick Reed. Then Spieth played in the final group of last year’s Open at Carnoustie. This season, as his struggles increased, his T21 at the Masters was his first top-25 in a stroke-play event. Then he played alongside Koepka in Saturday’s final group at the PGA Championship. The long and brawny Bethpage Black, where thick rough necessitated a pitch-out for all but the strongest players, did not seem to fit Spieth. He rode the best putting week of his career (according to the Strokes Gained: Putting statistic) to a T3 finish. On Friday, Spieth played a four-hole stretch from Nos. 5-8 in 5 under par. It started with a two-putt birdie from 80 feet on No. 5. Then he knocked a 6-iron within 10 feet on the par-3 sixth hole. He holed a curling putt from off the green to eagle the seventh hole. Another 25-footer gave him a birdie at 8. He was 1 over par the rest of the way. “I posted a score that was pretty incredible from where I played my second shots from,â€� Spieth said. He’s hit just 11 fairways in two rounds at Royal Portrush. On Thursday, he compared this year’s venue to Royal Birkdale, the site of his 2017 Open triumph. Both courses require more aerial approaches than the typical links course. Spieth was second on TOUR in Strokes Gained: Approach two years ago, though. “My game is in a different place than it was then,â€� he said. “And I’m working to get it back to where it was.â€� He ranks 141st in that statistic this season and 179th in Strokes Gained: Off-the-Tee. Missing the fairways on Friday may have helped him in his continued quest to fix his swing troubles. It forced him to be creative instead of thinking of swing thoughts. “My shots out of trouble today were really, really nice, and I got some good breaks off of where I hit it to,â€� Spieth said. “But every now and again you’ll get one that sits down in a hole, like on 9, and you can barely get it out. So it’s not worth continuing to try and hit those cool shots. But I’ve got my money’s worth for two days.â€� In his previous two events, Spieth finished T65 at the U.S. Open and missed the cut at the Travelers. He worked hard on his game since his last start, but said he’s at least a few weeks away from trusting those swing changes. Koepka hasn’t been in contention in his most recent starts, either. He finished outside the top 50 in both the Travelers and the 3M Open. Unlike Spieth, Koepka isn’t bothered by those showings. They’re by design. Koepka insists that he doesn’t prepare for the standard PGA TOUR event. “When you see me on TV, that’s when I play golf,â€� he said in his pre-tournament press conference at Royal Portrush. He’s become an expert in bringing his best stuff to the majors. He finished runner-up at the U.S. Open after a T50 in his preceding start, at the RBC Canadian Open. Like at Pebble Beach, Koepka is contending despite being dissatisfied with his putting. Spieth aside, Royal Portrush rewards strong ballstriking. It’s difficult to play run-up shots to the elevated greens. The slopes around the greens repel mishits and make recovery shots more difficult. The rough is lush, as well. Koepka has hit 25 greens in two rounds and 19 of 28 fairways. “I haven’t made a putt all week,â€� Koepka said. “I just need to figure that out. If I can make some putts I could very easily be 10-under, and really maybe more.â€�

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CARNOUSTIE, Scotland — Whether the turf is sun-baked or rain-soaked, brown or green, no matter if players attack with driver or proceed cautiously with irons, Carnoustie showed Thursday in The Open Championship that it can hold its own. In what might be the easiest conditions of the week, Kevin Kisner took only 22 putts, one of them for a long eagle that sparked his 5-under 66. It gave him a one-shot lead and little more than bragging rights in the house of stars where he is staying. One shot behind was a collection of players with little history in golf’s biggest events, including Erik Van Rooyen and Zander Lombard of South Africa. Tony Finau had eight birdies to offset his share of mistakes to join them at 67. Of the top seven on the leaderboard, none has won a major. Rory McIlroy and Jon Rahm powered their way to 69s, going for the green on short par 4s. Tiger Woods took out his driver one time and shot 71, a round slowed by a short putt he missed and a pot bunker he couldn’t avoid. But no one could go really low. The 31 players who managed to break par were separated by just four shots. “The golf course is great for me,” Kisner said. “The conditions have been fine. Going forward, you never know what you’re going to have in Scotland. I know the rain is coming in tomorrow. I don’t think the rain is going to affect how the golf course is playing in one day, but I have to just keep doing what I’m doing. If I have 22 putts the next three days, I bet I’ll have a pretty good shot.” Three of his housemates also were under par — PGA champion Justin Thomas (69), two-time major champion Zach Johnson (70) and Rickie Fowler (70). Another is defending champion Jordan Spieth, who was in range of the lead until he made one mental error and two bad swings while dropping four shots over the last four holes for a 72 that didn’t do too much damage. Even in gentle weather by Scottish standards, Carnoustie served up its usual dose of craziness. Padraig Harrington holed a short putt for par on the opening hole and turned to leave when he saw a golf ball trundle onto the green. It was the tee shot of U.S. Open champion Brooks Koepka, who hit driver off the tee to set up an easy birdie. That was as easy as it got for Koepka for the next two hours. He shot 41 on the front nine. And then he shot 31 on the back nine. “The scores probably weren’t as low as we anticipated, but 1 over is not the worst,” Koepka said. “Definitely didn’t shoot myself out of it, which very easily could have happened.” Sergio Garcia hit a drive that never stopped rolling on No. 10 until it dropped over the edge of Barry Burn. The water was shallow enough for the former Masters champion to smash through a ball rock and water to get the club on the ball and escape without further damage. Carnoustie was not kind to everyone. Dustin Johnson, the world’s No. 1 player, managed only one birdie in his round of 76, his highest start in The Open since his debut at Turnberry in 2009. Masters champion Patrick Reed, Hideki Matsuyama, Bubba Watson and Garcia were all at 75 and now have to worry about just getting to the weekend. On the longest day — from Sandy Lyle hitting the opening tee shot at 6:35 a.m. and the group including newcomer Bronson Burgoon finishing off the first round nearly 13 hours later — everyone had their own style of getting around the course reputed to be the toughest links in golf. “Different players are going to have a different way to see how they’re going to play this golf course,” McIlroy said. “I know Tiger is out there hitting a lot of irons off tees and doing it his own way. No one’s going to argue with him — he did it like at Hoylake, and he was able to win there.” There’s one difference, Woods said. “Hoylake is flat. This is not,” Woods said. “And when Hideki hits a 3-wood 400 yards into a burn, you know it’s kind of quick. A couple of my 6-irons went about 240. It’s hard for people to understand it, but it’s just the nature of this golf course.” Kisner’s best score in three previous trips to The Open was a 69 in the final round last year at Royal Birkdale. The firm, crusty conditions are not entirely new. It reminds him of Palmetto, the Alister Mackenzie design in his hometown of Aiken, South Carolina. Not so familiar was his putting. Kisner, normally solid with his striking and his short game, has not contended since the week after the Masters, and he putted so poorly at the Greenbrier two weeks ago that he spent most of his time on putting when he arrived at Carnoustie. “Worked really hard on my speed, which is always the hardest thing for us to get accustomed to here,” he said. “And the ball started coming off on the line, and when I’m doing that, I feel like I can hole them all.”

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