PGA CHAMPIONSHIP CONNERS LEADS In Thursday’s winds making a 33-footer

CONNERS LEADS PGA CHAMPIONSHIP AFTER ROUND ONE

Conners, 29, a rising player (he is ranked 39th in the world) who has played big in big events in 2021, had but one blemish on his card, a bogey at the par-4 ninth, where his approach from 186 yards finished over the green. He still made the turn in 34, then tacked on birdies at the 11th, 15th and 16th holes to post the round of the day.

“I kind of started the day thinking, ‘Why not me?’” said Conners, who tied for seventh at the Players Championship and tied for eighth at the Masters. “There’s birdies to be had. Just play with patience. You know, take advantage of the opportunities when they present themselves.”

Conners is known as a high-talent ball striker who might contend more often if he putted better (he ranks 86th on the PGA Tour in Strokes Gained: Putting).

He worked hard on the greens earlier this week, using a metronome to find more rhythm in his stroke. He needed only 24 putts in his opening round, making a 33-footer for birdie at the par-3 fifth and burying a key 55-footer from just off the front of the difficult par-4 15th.

In Thursday’s winds, players directly into the wind after the 13th hole for a rugged finishing stretch, and Conners played his last five in 2 under. He nearly added one more birdie at 18, but missed a chance from 13 feet.

“I knew those holes were difficult,” Conners said. “As soon as you make the turn back into the wind on 14, the last few holes, they are all beasts. You don’t really get any short clubs in your hand. You’ve got to hit solid shots, or you’re going to pay the price.”

Koepka, who won the PGA in 2018 and 2019 (Tiger Woods, who won in 1999-2000 and 2006-07, is the only other player since the PGA moved to stroke play in 1958 to win back to back), shot 5-under, too.

Well, sort of.

He started his round by making a mess of his opening hole, the relatively innocuous 10th, making double-bogey 6. He chose the wrong club off the tee and trying to get back on the fairway hit a steep grass bunker face with his second shot. “Deserved every bit of that double bogey,” he said.

It apparently woke him up like a glass of 3 a.m. ice water to the face.

Slowed by a knee injury that prohibits him from bending to read putts, Koepka played beautifully from that point, making six birdies against a lone bogey.

His explanation for the great play? It’s a major. And Koepka, who has won four of golf’s biggest trophies (two PGAs, two U.S. Opens) will always be ready.

“It's a major. I'm going to show up. I'm ready to play,” Koepka said. “I’ve been itching to do this since Augusta. I mean, I feel so much better now. I don't need to be a hundred percent to be able to play good.

“It wasn't ideal, the start, and knowing you've got that coming out. It was nice to get it back to even before I turned back into the wind (at No. 14). At the same time, you can't do that stuff if you want to win. You've just got to be more focused. I don't know if that's just the decision I made on 10th. I don't know if that's a lack of not playing or what. I don't know, it was just stupid. I was able to recover, I guess.”

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Koepka is accustomed to fast starts at the PGA. He shot an opening round in the 60s for the sixth consecutive time at the PGA Championship, dating to 2016 at Baltusrol.

Koepka made a great escape on a day when many of the top players in the game did not. World No. 1 Dustin Johnson, playing a major in his home state, shot 76. World No. 2 Justin Thomas shot 75, as did Rory McIlroy, who won by eight shots the last time the PGA Championship was on the island.

Jordan Spieth, needing to win to complete a career Grand Slam, opened with 73.Thursday’s average score was 74.781.

“It doesn't take much around here, and when you make that turn back into the wind, you're not expecting to make a ton of birdies on the way in,” said Steve Stricker, who opened with 76. He was rolling along nicely, then made triple bogey at the par-4 13th. “So that's the challenge is to get, you know, as many under as you can before you turn around at 14 and start heading in.”

Michigan’s Ben Cook, PGA Director of Instruction at Yankee Springs Golf Course and one of three pros in the field who spends his winter at John’s Island Golf Club in Vero Beach, shot the top round among the Team of 20 club professionals, carding an even-par 72, which ties him for 31st. Brad Marek, PGA Teaching Professional at Corica Park, opened with 73.

Good shots were rewarded, bad ones predictably punished and the Ocean Course -- reliably backed up by stiff breezes off the Atlantic -- came out of it looking like anything but a pushover. Canadian Corey Conners posted a 5-under 67, but it came on a day when the field averaged 75 and a quartet of pre-tournament picks landed right on that number or worse: Rory McIlroy and Justin Thomas (75), Dustin Johnson (76) and Daniel Berger (78).

For all that, no one’s feelings were badly bruised … except maybe Bryson DeChambeau’s. He recovered from four straight bogeys to finish at even-par 72, but appeared still out of sorts afterward. Recounting his round in a press conference. DeChambeau mixed up some holes, acknowledged he struggled with the heat and some bad breaks and found it nerve-wracking trying to constantly factor in the wind speed and direction, even on short putts.

The woe-is-me litany continued until a reporter, citing DeChambeau’s practice and preparation fetish, seemed genuinely concerned about his health, asking, “Are you close to a point of exhaustion?”

“No, I’m not like at wit’s end or anything … but this golf course takes it out of you,” DeChambeau said. “This is the most difficult golf course that I’ve played on Tour, and that is a straight-up fact for me.”

Conners chose a simpler practice regimen and it paid off handsomely. He drew up a plan on where to attack the course and where to take extra precautions, then banked on the winds following the same pattern they had during practice rounds. When that piece fell into place, the 29-year-old Canadian found his shots both into the wind and against it behaving pretty much the way he expected.

“You can’t fall asleep out there on any holes,” Conners said. “It’s very challenging. I was fortunate to have a good day. Made it the least stressful on myself as possible.”

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Good thing, too, since plenty of stress is lined up behind him. A half-dozen players, including majors specialist Brooks Koepka, were two shots back at 69, and mixed into the group of eight players at 70 were defending champion Collin Morikawa, former U.S. Open champion Gary Woodland and improbably, perhaps, 50-year-old Phil Mickelson.

Lefty started 3-over through six holes, but made up a lot of ground with a 32 on the back nine, where the field averaged 38.

“It’s very fair,” Mickelson said, “even though it’s tough.”

How tough?

At the par-3 14th, Jordan Spieth, who wound up shooting 73, could be heard pleading with his tee shot to stay on the putting surface: “Sit! Sit, sit, sit, sit, sit, sit, sit, sit … PLEASE!”

“It’s there,” someone on the tee box reassured him. But a heartbeat later, aided by the wind, his ball keeps rolling, slides off the back of the green and down into a swale.

“Damn,” Spieth says the second after that, “you've got to be kidding me.”

Hardly. Yet that was far from the strangest moment of the day. That belonged to Sebastian Munoz, who was hardly the only golfer to pull his tee shot well left and off the 18th fairway. The difference is that he had to retrieve his from a plastic trash bag set up in front of the grandstand on that side.

Munoz promptly handed the ball to a nearby spectator, took a free drop and made par with his replacement ball. As it turns out, because the right side of the 18th fairway is protected by a bunker complex, hitting a tee shot into the grandstand and taking that same free drop became a popular option.

“I wasn’t trying to hit it in there by any means, but definitely from that up tee (in use Thursday), it’s in play,” said former PGA champion Keegan Bradley, who shot 69. “I feel bad for all those people up there. They’d better have their hard hats on today. They’re going to be firing them in there all day.”

Expect the PGA of America, which sets up the course, to move that tee and a host of others farther back for Round 2. The Ocean Course, the longest ever for a major championship, played at 7,660 yards for the opener -- 178 yards shorter than the scorecard – and a little more wiggle room is the last thing a field that’s already wobbling is likely to welcome.