LOS ANGELES — They shared a bro handshake and a laugh or two on the first tee box. Then, the odd couple — Rory McIlroy and Brooks Koepka — started down the fairway in search of solutions for the biggest problem in golf.
On Thursday at the U.S. Open, it had nothing to do with Saudi-backed LIV Golf (Koepka’s tour) or the future of the PGA Tour (McIlroy’s). Rather, it was the eight-shot deficit they shared before they’d even put a tee in the ground.
McIlroy did something about it. His 5-under 30 on the front nine during the afternoon wave matched what both Xander Shauffele and Rickie Fowler shot over the same nine holes in the morning en route to their record-setting 62s at Los Angeles Country Club.
Koepka did not. He spent the first half of his round missing fairways, scrambling for pars and making three bogeys before he rallied with back-to-back birdies to turn at 1-over 36.
The USGA’s pairing of Koepka and McIlroy — with Hideki Matsuyama added to the mix to presumably play peacemaker — caught the golf world’s eye.
McIlroy was the most outspoken defender of the PGA Tour when players started defecting for LIV Golf about a year ago. When the tour and the Saudi backers of LIV announced last week that they were ending hostilities and going into business together, McIlroy said he felt like “a sacrificial lamb” — a front man to espouse all that was good about the tour who wasn’t even given a heads up before the deal was announced.
Koepka was never as outspoken about his move to LIV, but when he won the PGA Championship last month, he blew holes in the theory that all the LIV guys went for the easy money because they didn’t have game anymore.
In the lead-in to the U.S. Open this week, Koepka said “I enjoy the chaos” that was consuming golf. He has collected all five of his majors since McIlroy won his fourth and most recent in 2014, and Koepka considers his ability to block the outside noise as a major advantage.
McIlroy, who grew more reluctant to talk about the LIV-PGA Tour schism as time went on, canceled his scheduled pre-tournament news conference.
Early on in the U.S. Open, his golf game was doing most of the talking.
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