PGA Championship: Brooks Koepka, chasing history, leads by five with Dustin Johnson lurking - The Washington Post

Brooks Koepka hits his tee shot at No. 2. (Tannen Maury / EPA-EFE / REX)

May 19 at 3:01 PM

Brooks Koepka woke Sunday morning with a commanding lead in the PGA Championship, an event he won last year, and it seemed that only an epic, Greg Normanesque collapse or a nearly impossible run from another golfer could prevent him from winning a major for the fourth time.

But, with the wind at Bethpage State Park’s Black Course on Long Island gusting up to 20 miles per hour just as Koepka and Harold Varner III, his playing partner, as well as the other golfers chasing him teed off in the early afternoon.

No. 3 (par 3, 223 yards): Varner gave back the stroke he’d picked up on the first hole, and then some. He double-bogeyed the hole and dropped into a tie at 4-under, Dustin Johnson alone in second place at six-under. Koepka, still settled, managed par. Koepka: 11-under

No. 2 (par 4, 389 yards)

After dropping two strokes with his bogey and his partner’s birdie, both Koepka and Harold Varner III settled down on the second hole. Both emerged with par and Koepka’s lead held at five strokes. Koepka: 11-under

No. 1 (par 4, 430 yards): Right off the bat, a fan tried to rattle Koepka, muttering, “Little windy out there, Brooksie.” Koepka opened precisely the way he would not have preferred: with a bogey on the first hole. Varner found the fairway and managed a birdie that chipped away at Koepka’s lead. And just like that, Koepka’s seven-stroke lead entering play was down to five, with Varner alone in second place. Koepka: 11-under

On the eve of the final round, Koepka was having no crisis of doubt about whether he could win.

“No,” came the two-letter answer after his even-par-70 performance Saturday as Koepka continued to display the kind of unquestioning confidence Tiger Woods showed in his heyday.

[PGA Championship leaderboard]

How’s this for historical dominance? With a victory, he would become the first golfer to simultaneously hold back-to-back titles at two majors (the U.S. Open is the other, which he won in 2017 and 2018). His seven-stroke lead was the largest for any player in a major since Rory McIlroy led the 2011 U.S. Open by eight.

[Perspective: Brooks Koepka finds golf's mountaintop after stops around the world]

So it’s hard to blame him for having a serene sense of destiny. No leader after 54 holes has lost a lead of seven or more strokes going into the final round. “He’s doing what he said he’d do,” Xander Schauffle told reporters. “He’s talked s--- in the media room and he’s backed every word of it up.”

Could anything derail Koepka? Certainly not a trophy curse, judging by the Instagram account of his girlfriend, actress/model Jena Sims.

Mickelson’s thumbs are just fine. Really.

Phil Mickelson finished way, way, way back of the pack at 12 over, but he had fun giving thumbs up signs to all the Phil fans. He had so much fun, in fact, that he joked Saturday about “thumb activation” in a hilarious social media post and cracked about it again Sunday, saying he’d broken the one-day record at Bethpage with his gestures to fans. “If the putts go down, the thumbs are coming up,” he cracked. There was no such luck Sunday.

“My game struggled because of it,” he told TNT.

Really?

Nah.

“I’m just kidding,” he told TNT. “That’s not why I struggled.”

Here’s how to watch (all times Eastern)

Online: 11 a.m.-7 p.m. on PGA.com

TV: 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. on TNT; 2-7 on CBS, CBSSports.com, CBS Sports App

Tee times:

7:35 a.m. — David Lipsky, Rich Beem

7:45 a.m. — Max Homa, Joos Luiten

7:55 a.m. — Corey Conners, Marty Jertson

8:05 a.m. — Kevin Tway, Kurt Kitayama