Brooks Koepka’s competitive mindset of “go out and play” leads to under-par round

Brooks Koepka was among the few to post an under-par round at The Open, as he remained blunt about his performance.

Brooks Koepka may be one of 17 players under par at The Open Championship, but he knows the challenge is far from over at Royal Troon. He is one of the lucky ones, as many golfers struggled in these conditions.

Kopeka signed for a 1-under 70 with five birdies and four bogeys on Thursday. He trails leader Daniel Brown by five after the Englishman shot a 6-under 65.

“I didn’t think I hit it very good,” Koepka said.

“I putted pretty well today, which kept me in it. But wasn’t too excited about the ball-striking.”

That said, the LIV Golf captain did not provide any excuses. The whole field had to deal with the harsh weather and challenging conditions.

“It is what it is. Everybody has got to play it,” Koepka said.

“It’s not anything we haven’t played in before. Just go out and go play... Look, there’s a lot of good players, and when they play well, you can [only] control your ball. Links golf, if you’re creative enough, you can find different ways to get it near the hole.”

After starting 2-over through his first three holes, Koepka fired off four straight birdies to shoot up the leaderboard.

“Made a bunch of bad swings early the first three holes,” he explained.

“Then, found something there, and when you get hot, you get hot. It was nice to roll that putt in and see an actual birdie [on the 4th]. Then the 3-iron [on 5], believe it or not, I mis-hit it a little bit, and it found its way close to the hole. That’s links golf. You can get a good bounce. It ended up all right.”

He almost aced the par-3 5th. Koepka called that the best shot he had hit of the day despite mis-hitting it.

The 5th was the second-hardest hole on the golf course during the first round, so he picked up more than a stroke on the field by making a birdie there. It is his first time playing Royal Troon, as he did not tee it up in the 2016 Open.

Koepka acknowledged that the back nine could get even harder if the weather worsens, but he does not care about the conditions.

“It doesn’t matter. You’ve still got to go out and play, so go play,” Koepka said.

The 9-time PGA Tour winner tees off Friday at 4:14 a.m. ET with Hideki Matsuyama and Wyndham Clark as he looks to win his sixth career major.

Savannah Leigh Richardson is a golf staff writer for SB Nation’s Playing Through. For more golf coverage, follow us @_PlayingThrough on all major social platforms. You can also follow her on Twitter @SportsGirlSL and Instagram @golf_girl_sl.