PGA Championship: Jordan Spieth puts himself in position to make a run at the Grand Slam but Brooks Koepka won’t ease up
Jordan Spieth put it all together in the second round with a 66 and a 135 total that, when he finished, was just two shots behind Brooks Koepka. But Koepka came out and shot another low round, a 65, and his advantage is now seven strokes.
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Until Brooks Koepka tore up Bethpage Black for the second straight day at the PGA Championship, Jordan Spieth appeared to be in position to create history.
Spieth gave himself a chance Friday to complete golf’s career Grand Slam, striking for four birdies on his second nine for a 4-under-par 66 that gave him the clubhouse lead at 5-under 135 midway through the second round. At that point, he trailed Koepka by two strokes.
However, Koepka, who teed off Friday afternoon after Spieth had concluded play, showed no signs of letting up and fired a 65 to extend his lead to seven strokes. Koepka and Spieth will play together in Saturday’s final pairing starting at 2:50 p.m.
Spieth, 25, who hasn’t won since the 2017 British Open and hasn’t finished in the top 20 in 2019, can become the sixth player in history to win the Grand Slam — victories at the Masters, U.S. Open, British Open and PGA — with a victory here.
Spieth said he hasn’t thought of the Grand Slam after two rounds and “can’t imagine” that it will distract him during the weekend.
“I haven’t been in contention on a Sunday since the [British] Open last year,” he said. “If I’m able to put in some good work [Saturday], then I will be in contention on Sunday.
“At that point, it will be just more of trying to win a golf tournament. It won’t matter to me what tournament it is. I’ll be pleased to be in contention, knowing that the work I put in from being pretty far off has really come back nicely on a very difficult golf course. I imagine that will take pretty much most of my thought. But we’ll see. I’m not sure what to expect.”
Spieth, who began his round on the 10th hole, birdied No. 11 but then suffered bogeys at the 15th and 16th. From that point, he went 5-under par, starting with a birdie at the par-3 17th.
Once he made the turn, Spieth was locked in, sinking birdie putts of 20 feet at No. 1, 6 feet at No. 4, 5 feet at No. 7, and 40 feet at No. 8 to get to 5-under. He preserved his score after hitting his approach shot at No. 9 into a front bunker and blasting out to 2 feet for a par.