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Uncomfortable Koepka (68) flips switch to salvage opening round at BMW

MEDINAH, Ill. — Brooks Koepka wasn’t comfortable.

He wasn’t comfortable last week at Liberty National, where he tied for 30th, and he wasn’t comfortable for his first 11 holes Thursday at the BMW Championship.

“It’s kind of been the same story for a week now,” he said. “Last week same thing, I just didn’t feel comfortable over the ball.”

Koepka was 1 over par on his day coming off back-to-back bogeys at 10 and 11. And then, all of a sudden, a tiny tweak changed everything.


BMW Championship: Full-field tee scores | Full coverage | FedExCup standings


“Made a little adjustment and finally felt like I could shape the ball the way I wanted to, felt comfortable.”

As if anyone needed a reminder, a comfortable Koepka is a dangerous Koepka. The FedExCup leader coming into this week played his final seven holes in 5 under, with three birdies and an eagle, to pull his round out of the fire and post 68.

The eagle came at the par-5 14th, where he smashed a 296-yard 3-wood pin-high and a sank a bending 15-footer for this three.

“Yeah, it helped watching [Rory McIlroy’s putt], because it broke about a foot more than it looked like. So to have him go first, kind of on the same line, was big and luckily enough it snuck in there on the high side.”

Koepka, who attributed his turnaround to shortening up his swing and making “one key swing-thought change,” sounded ready to go right back to the range.

“Yeah, I played good there coming in, but I should have started like that,” he said. “It wasn’t the best start. I figured something out and hopefully I go work on it here and kind of fine-tune everything.”