Brooks Koepka, Jordan Spieth bringing their best to another major at The Open Championship

PORTRUSH, Northern Ireland – It’s a dichotomy that has a drastically different meaning to each player.

Brooks Koepka and Jordan Spieth both save their best performances for majors. For Koepka, that disparity is by design. Spieth’s perplexing record is the result of a frustrating slump.

The two American twenty-somethings with multiple majors are in contention at another one. They both shot 5-under 137 over the first 36 holes at Royal Portrush to sit three shots behind 36-hole leaders J.B. Holmes and Shane Lowry.

Spieth continued to struggle with his driver, but rode a hot putter to a 67 on Friday. Koepka showed us at Pebble Beach that he can win a major without his best performance on the putting surfaces. That was the case again Friday.

Koepka is trying to continue a run of dominance that can be compared only to Tiger Woods and Jack Nicklaus. He has finished first or second in all three majors this year, and five of the last six. Adding the claret jug to his pair of U.S. Opens and PGAs would give him three legs of the career Grand Slam. He’s trying to become the first person since Tiger Woods to win multiple majors in consecutive seasons.

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For Spieth, The Open is a reminder of better times. His 2017 victory at Royal Birkdale represents his last win on the PGA TOUR.

His best opportunities to add a 12th PGA TOUR victory have come in majors. He threatened Augusta National’s course record before bogeying the final hole of the 2018 Masters and falling two shots short of Patrick Reed. Then Spieth played in the final group of last year’s Open at Carnoustie.

This season, as his struggles increased, his T21 at the Masters was his first top-25 in a stroke-play event. Then he played alongside Koepka in Saturday’s final group at the PGA Championship. The long and brawny Bethpage Black, where thick rough necessitated a pitch-out for all but the strongest players, did not seem to fit Spieth. He rode the best putting week of his career (according to the Strokes Gained: Putting statistic) to a T3 finish.

On Friday, Spieth played a four-hole stretch from Nos. 5-8 in 5 under par. It started with a two-putt birdie from 80 feet on No. 5. Then he knocked a 6-iron within 10 feet on the par-3 sixth hole. He holed a curling putt from off the green to eagle the seventh hole. Another 25-footer gave him a birdie at 8.

He was 1 over par the rest of the way.

“I posted a score that was pretty incredible from where I played my second shots from,” Spieth said. He’s hit just 11 fairways in two rounds at Royal Portrush.

On Thursday, he compared this year’s venue to Royal Birkdale, the site of his 2017 Open triumph. Both courses require more aerial approaches than the typical links course. Spieth was second on TOUR in Strokes Gained: Approach two years ago, though.

“My game is in a different place than it was then,” he said. “And I'm working to get it back to where it was.”

He ranks 141st in that statistic this season and 179th in Strokes Gained: Off-the-Tee. Missing the fairways on Friday may have helped him in his continued quest to fix his swing troubles. It forced him to be creative instead of thinking of swing thoughts.

“My shots out of trouble today were really, really nice, and I got some good breaks off of where I hit it to,” Spieth said. “But every now and again you'll get one that sits down in a hole, like on 9, and you can barely get it out. So it's not worth continuing to try and hit those cool shots. But I've got my money's worth for two days.”

In his previous two events, Spieth finished T65 at the U.S. Open and missed the cut at the Travelers. He worked hard on his game since his last start, but said he’s at least a few weeks away from trusting those swing changes.

Koepka hasn’t been in contention in his most recent starts, either. He finished outside the top 50 in both the Travelers and the 3M Open. Unlike Spieth, Koepka isn’t bothered by those showings. They’re by design.

Koepka insists that he doesn’t prepare for the standard PGA TOUR event. “When you see me on TV, that’s when I play golf,” he said in his pre-tournament press conference at Royal Portrush.

He’s become an expert in bringing his best stuff to the majors. He finished runner-up at the U.S. Open after a T50 in his preceding start, at the RBC Canadian Open.

Like at Pebble Beach, Koepka is contending despite being dissatisfied with his putting. Spieth aside, Royal Portrush rewards strong ballstriking. It’s difficult to play run-up shots to the elevated greens. The slopes around the greens repel mishits and make recovery shots more difficult. The rough is lush, as well.

Koepka has hit 25 greens in two rounds and 19 of 28 fairways.

“I haven’t made a putt all week,” Koepka said. “I just need to figure that out. If I can make some putts I could very easily be 10-under, and really maybe more.”