Brooks Koepka was the most excited he’s been playing golf in more than three years during the back nine of Saturday’s third round at the ONEflight Myrtle Beach Classic.
And that’s probably for good reason.
The five-time major winner shot five birdies and an eagle on the par-5 13th that spearheaded a 29 down the stretch to vault him to T-2 as he walked off the course at Dunes Golf and Beach Club with some of the field still playing through Round 3.
“That’s the most excited I’ve been playing golf in a long, long time. I can tell you that much,” Koepka told reporters in his post-round interview after his lowest round of the year. “It’s I would say back until ’23, the PGA. That’s the most — it’s been a long time since I’ve had fun playing golf.
“For at least a year, I’ve been very — I was very frustrated last year,” he added. “Just wasn’t in a good place, but I think a lot of times when you — it’s like anybody, right? If they’re happy off the golf course, they’re going to play well on the golf course. I think that’s a huge, huge piece of it, and I’ve found that. Re-found my happiness, my love for the game. All the pieces are connected. It’s just now I’ve got to go out and go play.”
Koepka, who has been a heavily-referenced example in recent debates on how former LIV Golf players might make their way to the PGA Tour, said that he’s tried tuning out the noise and focusing on playing good golf which he noted “takes care of a lot.”
“Maybe to everybody else, but to me I just look at it as a process of the whole thing,” he said to a question about whether winning this specific tournament would suddenly mean more to him than another. “I don’t know when I expected to get into elevated events, whatever it is, but I said it earlier in the week, good play takes care of itself.”
Koepka’s previous low was 65 this season in front of his home crowd at the Cognizant, and since then he has spent considerable time waiting to get into elevated events. First there was Harbour Town the week following the 2026 Masters (which Koepka finished T-12).
And two weeks later — after being cut at the Zurich in between, Koepka was at the center of another game of “alternate-in-waiting” in Doral.
That all paid off Saturday in Myrtle Beach when the crowds ushered him in the clubhouse with cheers.
“It just felt like our whole group, the gallery, got twice the size,” Koepka said about building momentum during his run on the back nine. “I love that. They’ve been fantastic. They’ve been super supportive all week, and it’s fun to kind of get those feels of playing good. The crowd is growing. The energy is kind of with me.”
Any thoughts about Aronimink?
Koepka kept the focus on finishing up Sunday where he’ll enter somewhere in the top 10 at -11. He did say he felt his putter was in better shape heading into next week’s PGA Championship than it was a month ago at Augusta.
“It will be something I’ve been looking forward to for a while,” said the three-time Wanamaker Trophy winner. “I feel like I’ve been knocking on the door. It’s very close. It’s one piece here, one piece there. Short game wasn’t quite there at Augusta. Putted OK, but the short game now is starting to come around.”
He was very pleased with his irons on Saturday in South Carolina, and believed they would follow him north to the suburbs of Philadelphia where Aronimink Golf Club awaits a 156-player field.
Nobody in it will claim to be a three-time tournament champ.
“Today was honestly the best ball-striking day I’ve had out in a while,” Koepka said. “It’s nice to see, because I feel like — we were talking yesterday. I feel like I haven’t shot 6-under, 7-under, 8-under in a long time. I know a lot of that is because of the putter, but hopefully this can kind of translate into tomorrow and then into next week, and then you just build that momentum and ride the wave.”
