58 2GM Friday August 7 2020 | the times
SportUS PGA Championship
5
Saracens’ plan to ensure their star
players are in prime condition for the
British & Irish Lions tour has won the
seal of approval from Lions coach
Warren Gatland, as the rest of
England’s potential tourists face a
brutal 51-week schedule.
Mark McCall, the Saracens director
of rugby, confirmed that the relegated
club could loan Owen Farrell or Maro
Itoje to a Super Rugby franchise if they
Saracens’ sabbatical stars given the green light from Gatland
required some high-level rugby before
the South Africa tour. Otherwise, the
established internationals will play for
England but enjoy a “golden opportuni-
ty for a quiet club season” while Sara-
cens attempt to win promotion from
the Greene King IPA Championship.
Billy and Mako Vunipola might play
more Championship games than
Farrell or Itoje because they prefer
matches to training, but the other star
names will be on something akin to a
sabbatical. In contrast, Premiership
stars will have limited downtime duringa year of non-stop rugby, beginning
with the season restart on August 14 and
ending with the third Lions Test against
South Africa on August 7 next year.
“In lots of ways this is the perfect
season for them,” McCall said of his
likely Lions, including Elliot Daly and
Jamie George, after they all committed
to staying with Saracens.
“We need to work out what the indi-
viduals need post-Six Nations. If [a loan
move to Super Rugby] were to happen it
would be to get enough rugby to make
sure they are firing come the Lions tour.“The Lions have a warm-up game
before the tour [set to be against Japan]
and I would expect all our players to be
available for that. There are games in
South Africa before the first Test and
that might be enough for them. I talked
to Warren Gatland on Monday and he
was very happy with the situation.”
Gatland will be less impressed that
Premiership Rugby, which confirmed
next season’s final will be on June 26,
has again refused to give the Lions extra
preparation time. McCall believes that
both Farrell, 28, and Itoje, 25, would doa “phenomenal job” if asked to be Lions
captain.
BT Sport hope to secure a new rights
deal with Premiership Rugby. There is
less than 12 months remaining on the
existing deal. Sky Sports are not
believed to be interested, which could
drive down the price.
BT has agreed to broadcast all
matches when the season resumes,
until fans are allowed back. Season-
ticket holders will qualify for free access
to the subscription channel, with four
matches free-to-air on Channel 5.Rugby union
Alex Lowe Deputy Rugby Correspondent
Brooks Koepka made a bullish start to
his quest to become the first man to win
three successive US PGA Champion-
ships since Walter Hagen did so in the
Roaring 20s. If he lacks the style of his
predecessor, known for Cadillacs and
mad dashes to the tee wearing last
night’s tuxedo, he still looked the part.
“I’m playing so good,” he gushed.
Pete Cowen, Koepka’s Yorkshire
coach-cum truth-giver, says the
American wants to be the best “by
miles”. He has not looked it this year,
but a pep-talk a fortnight ago after
Cowen had recovered from Covid-19,
including requisite expletives, appears
to have jolted him into form.
Koepka finished the first round of the
first major for more than a year with a
four-under-par round of 66 to put him
a stroke behind the clubhouse leader,
the 2015 winner Jason Day. Alas, there
were no fans at Harding Park which
was a shame, given that they would
have thrilled to some vintage moments
from Tiger Woods who finished at two
under despite being 44 and needing a
snood.
Another 40-something fared even
better, Justin Rose’s two birdie putts on
the closing holes giving him a grinding
round of 66. As for Rory McIlroy he is
not sunk yet but he is adrift from the
leaders after 70 mixed strokes and
festering major frustration.
His round can be abridged to torrid,
gutsy, damp squib. McIlroy’s last major
win came six years ago. There have
been numerous back-door entries to
the top ten, but he has been best as a
frontrunner and has won the big prizes
when he has got off to a good start. This
will have to be different. So will his put-
ting. He was, however, gracious in al-
most anointing Koepka early.
“To win two majors in a row is
impressive so to win three back-to-back
and the run of golf he’s played in the
majors has been incredible,” he said.
needs to get his bounce back fast. A
birdie to start with on the par-five 10th
seemed like a perfect scene-setter but it
was met by the sound of silence. “He’s
not into it,” the watching Paul McGin-
ley said.
Instead he was in trouble and in the
rough on the 12th and then fluffed a
seven-foot putt. He missed from a simi-
lar distance on the next, needed a dropLeaderboard
R1 R2 R3 R4 Total
J Day (Aus) -5 65 - - - 65
B Cauley -4 66 - - - 66Z Johnson -4 66 - - - 66M Kaymer (Ger) -4 66 - - - 66B Koepka -4 66 - - - 66M Lorenzo-Vera (Fra)-4 66 - - - 66J Rose (Eng) -4 66 - - - 66X Schauffele -4 66 - - - 66S Scheffler -4 66 - - - 66B Steele -4 66 - - - 66D Berger -3 67 - - - 67T Finau -3 67 - - - 67K Kisner -3 67 - - - 67
T Lewis (Eng) -3 67 - - - 67A Noren (Swe) -3 67 - - - 67G Woodland -3 67 - - - 67B Harman -2 68 - - - 68S Lowry (Ire) -2 68 - - - 68K Mitchell -2 68 - - - 68B Wiesberger (Aut) -2 68 - - - 68T Woods -2 68 - - - 68A Ancer (Mex) -1 69 - - - 69C Conners (Can) -1 69 - - - 69J Dahmen -1 69 - - - 69
H English -1 69 - - - 69D Johnson -1 69 - - - 69J Kokrak -1 69 - - - 69N Lashley -1 69 - - - 69D Lee (NZ) -1 69 - - - 69C Morikawa -1 69 - - - 69M Schwab (Aut) -1 69 - - - 69J Dufner 0 70 - - - 70D Frittelli (RSA) 0 70 - - - 70S Kang (S Kor) 0 70 - - - 70J Kim (S Kor) 0 70 - - - 70
R McIlroy (N Ire) 0 70 - - - 70L Oosthuizen (RSA) 0 70 - - - 70V Perez (Fra) 0 70 - - - 70S Piercy 0 70 - - - 70H Stenson (Swe) 0 70 - - - 70L Glover +1 71 - - - 71R Henley +1 71 - - - 71C Reavie +1 71 - - - 71R Sabbatini (Svk) +1 71 - - - 71J Thomas +1 71 - - - 71M Thompson +1 71 - - - 71
E van Rooyen (RSA) +1 71 - - - 71Early leading first-round scores
(United States unless stated)after a terrible tee shot on the
14th and he had three succes-
sive bogeys.
The good thing about
McIlroy is that however bad
he is playing he has the talent
to extricate himself. So after
his optimism-pricking open-
ing he made three birdies in
four holes around the turn to
find a foothold in the event.
Woods started better. Absent fans
may have been hailing a prospective
miracle from the moment a chip from
the rough handed him his first birdie.
The bandwagon was rolling. When he
perfectly judged a huge putt on his
fourth you could almost hear the roars.
Woods walks gingerly these days and
on two occasions his attempts to get out
of the rough looked about as ungainly
as you can get this side of crazy golf.
Back-to-back birdies on his 13th and
14th holes took him to two under. He
still believes, but Koepka may take
some stopping.Koepka back
to best form
as he targets
Hagen’s mark
“He seems to find his comfort zone in
these tournaments.”
In comparison with Bryson De-
Chambeau’s scientific approach to golf,
Koepka’s equations are back-of-the-
fag-packet stuff. He reasons that he can
beat half the field anyway and half of
those left will not play well. The pres-
sure of the major will see off a few more
and so he deduces that he needs to beat
only around ten players to win a major.
When you say that, it looks easy. Along-
side the simplicity of Koepka arith-
metic, McIlroy sometimes appears to
be wrestling with the second law of
thermodynamics.
Koepka has been the man for majors
in recent times. He won four in 23
months up to last year’s PGA Champi-
onship. He was still the world No 1 in
February but was an ailing presence by
then. A knee problem had chipped
away at the normally inviolable confi-
dence. His form went. He struggled
after the restart.
After his round Koepka said
he had enjoyed an epiphany
recently when tossing clubs in
practice and then realising his
weight distribution was all
wrong. More than anything,
though, he lives for majors.
“The majors almost seem like
an easier week for me,” he said.
“I think sometimes guys can
practise a little too much. If
you’re going to be here until
Sunday it’s mentally draining.”
Not winning three successive
US Opens last year — he was
second to Gary Woodland —
“drove me nuts.”
So he muscled tee shots and
plopped approaches close to the flags.
Utterly unflustered by an early bogey
he snaffled four birdies and was out in- The 1st, his 10th, summed up the
psyche. A poor drive, a pitch to the fair-
way and a bad bounce to the bunker
meant he needed a 12-foot putt for a
bogey. It was a putt that prevented the
round being drained of all momentum.
But what of McIlroy? For a while he
was on the sort of bumpy ride that San
Francisco had not seen since Steve
McQueen was flogging his Ford Mus-
tang through the city’s streets in Bullitt.
The wheels are by no means off, but he
Rick Broadbent
a
14
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eflags Koepka’s return to form continued
with a round of 66. Woods and
McIlroy, inset, were a further two
and four shots adrift of the AmericanJAMIE SQUIRE/GETTY IMAGES