Brooks Koepka has left hip worked on mid-round at PGA Championship

Brooks Koepka, who has struggled to come back from a left knee injury for much of the last year, had his left hip stretched out by his physical therapist multiple times in the middle of his second round at the 102nd PGA Championship at TPC Harding Park in San Francisco.

The two-time defending champion Koepka (68, 6 under) is in contention for a threepeat despite three occasions in which he lay on the grass on his back as physio Marc Wahl manipulated the leg.

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“It was my hip – it has nothing to do with my knee,” said Koepka, who birdied the 18th hole to climb to within two of surprise leader Haotong Li of China. “It’s fine. I woke up this morning, it was tight, and worked out and it got even tighter and then we loosened it up.

“It was a little tight when I was hitting balls on the range, but it's nothing to be worried about.”

Koepka said it had been five or six years since he’d last needed mid-round treatment in a PGA TOUR event, when “a rib went out” at the Arnold Palmer Invitational presented by Mastercard.

“Where I really felt it was off 12th tee,” he said. “It just like locked up, cramped, and I couldn't really do anything with it. That one, the first one was all right. It definitely relieved some issue I think.

“I think the one going into 16,” he added, “where he yanked on my foot, I don't know what Marc does, but it popped and it felt like it just kind of repositioned itself, and that's when it felt a lot better.”

Most of the concern about Koepka’s health centers around his knee. He underwent stem cell therapy for a partially torn patella tendon on his knee after the TOUR Championship last year. He reinjured it slipping on wet concrete at THE CJ CUP @ NINE BRIDGES in Korea last fall, and missed playing on the U.S. Presidents Cup Team in Australia.

He also missed a significant chunk of time earlier this season, and struggled to find his game until finishing second at the WGC-FedEx St. Jude Invitational in Memphis last weekend. There, he said he and his coaches realized he had been reluctant to shift his weight onto his left side.

He seems to be having no difficulty doing exactly that at TPC Harding Park.

As for the stretching sessions, he said, “It’s something I’m not worried about.”