SAN DIEGO — The temperature at Torrey Pines already had risen to an inviting mid-60s at 9:30 a.m. on Thursday when Brooks Koepka stepped onto the first tee of the South Course. The weather was unseasonably warm and comfortable, with not a cloud in the sky—basically mirroring the feeling and reception the five-time major winner got as he returned to the PGA Tour after a 3½-year absence while competing on LIV Golf.
MORE: The other side of Brooks Koepka
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Maybe it was just sleepy morning for fans on the cliffs above the Pacific Ocean, but there were no wild cheers from a gallery of a couple hundred. A few people shouted, “Love you, Brooks,” and others offered, “welcome back!” Koepka’s group partner, past Farmers Open winner Max Homa, drew louder support.
On the other hand—and probably more meaningful to Koepka—there was not a single audible jeer for the man who was among the most high-profile American players to depart for a controversial league while making more than $150 million doing it. The only heckling Koepka seemed to get was after the round when an obnoxious man loudly and repeatedly asked him to sign a golf ball following the golfer spending 15 minutes working along an autograph line of mostly kids. “I’m your biggest fan!” the guy bellowed, but that still didn’t get him a signature.
Koepka would admit after the round that he was feeling more nervous than he had in quite a while but hardly looked shaky while striping his opening drive into the fairway.
A page turned on a new chapter of his life.
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“Yeah, it was great. The fans were awesome today,” Koepka said. “I think it was very cool to hear ‘welcome back.’ It was pretty much every hole, which is great. I loved to hear it and I’m excited for the next few days.”
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He admitted why he was concerned about the reaction.
“I just cared about my perception, what people thought or what the fans thought,” he said. “It’s easy when you’re around the players and they come and talk to you or you talk to them, or caddies or people around here, but everybody else, I wasn’t sure.”
While saying he was feeling jitters on the first tee, Koepka deadpanned, “I guess I should have been more nervous the rest of the round.” He made only one birdie—on the 18th hole—in shooting one-over-par 73 on the two-time U.S. Open course.
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Tied for 101st place after Round 1, Koepka could perhaps take solace in being even with his former U.S. Ryder Cup teammates, Xander Schauffee and Patrick Cantlay, and defending Farmers Open champion Harris English. He also bested his two playing partners, with Homa shooting 75 and Ludvig Aberg, who won the Genesis Invitational at Torrey Pines last February, struggling to a 78.
That’s how tough the South Course is and Koepka was playing his first competitive round since the DP World Tour’s Alfred Dunhill Links Championship in early October.
“It felt good,” said Koepka, who hit only six fairways, but more than doubled his greens reached with 13. “It’s been a while since I played competitive golf, so I like the way I’m playing; I just need to kind of play my way into it.”
One of the primary reasons, Kopeka has said, for his return to the PGA Tour is the desire to spend more time with his family, and he said his wife, Jena Sims, and their 3½-year-old son, Crew, would be out at Torrey Pines this week. They weren’t on the grounds on Thursday but can be expected later in the week.
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As it was for Tuesday’s news conference, Koepka’s demeanor was seemingly a blend of restraint and earnestness. At one point, he said he had “fallen back in love with the game” while watching Crew begin to show interest in it.
“I guess I want him to watch me play well,” he said, “and realize how much this game’s given me, how fun it is, and how cool it is to just be out here.”
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