Brooks Koepka turned up at Aronimink with a new TaylorMade Spider in the bag (the old one having broken in transit), the cleanest ball-striking week he has had in months, and the look of a man who, at long last, is enjoying playing golf again. He left Round 1 of the 2026 PGA Championship at 1-under 69, two shots off the early clubhouse lead, hitting 15 of 18 greens in regulation and finishing second in the field in strokes gained: approach.
If Koepka were ranked solely on the way he struck his irons, he would be in the top three. He is not, because the part of his game he can't yet trust is the part of the game that wins majors.
"A little bit of speed, a little bit of confidence. That kind of sums it up," Koepka said of his putting. "It's just been miss after miss."
It's the same diagnosis Koepka has been carrying for the better part of a season. His LIV Golf form has been steady but unspectacular. His Masters week in April leaked away on the greens. The driver and irons — the engines of his five-major run between 2017 and 2023 — are largely back. The putter has not caught up.
What is back, by his own admission, is the joy.
"I re-found my happiness, my love for the game," Koepka said. "All the pieces are connected. It's just now, I've got to go out and go play."
What that looks like at Aronimink is a player whose iron game is tracking exactly the way it did during his best major weeks. Koepka has historically been one of the best in the world at controlling his ball into the kind of tucked pins Donald Ross greens demand, and Aronimink — freshly restored over the past decade by Gil Hanse and Jim Wagner — is unmistakably a course that rewards exactly that. Players who can hit the right shelves get looks at birdie. Players who can't get tested by the green complexes from the wrong side.
Koepka hit the right shelves all day. His ball striking left him inside 20 feet on the kind of pins that defeated McIlroy and DeChambeau over in the next groups. What he couldn't do was convert those looks. His Round 1 strokes gained: putting trailed the field average by more than a stroke.
"It's just been miss after miss," Koepka repeated. The new Spider is a fallback after his trusted putter broke before the week. He has 36 holes to rewire feel.
The head-on numbers — a 69 with this much approach-play quality — should be the most encouraging signal Koepka has had in a major all year. Six players sit at 3-under, including major debutant Aldrich Potgieter and two-time PGA winner Justin Thomas. Koepka is at -1, four back, with two weather-friendly days forecast across the weekend.
If the putter ever catches up to the irons this week, Koepka will be in contention for his sixth major and his fourth Wanamaker. If it doesn't, this is the same story he has been telling for two years.
"All the pieces are connected," he said. "It's just now, I've got to go out and go play."