PGA Championship: Brooks Koepka storms into formidable lead as Tiger Woods trails in his dust

This was a devastating vein of golf by the sport’s best player, dismantling Bethpage Black in a fashion rarely ever witnessed

Tiger Woods and Brooks Koepka, Masters champion and defending champion, softening predecessor and steel-edged disciple walked to the first tee at Bethpage Black, before exchanging smiles and a friendly fist-bump. Fifteen minutes later, there were three shots between them, and Koepka waltzed into an intimidating and precise pomp that never slowed.

At the turn it was three, by 14 it was six with an early English contingent trailing dust as Koepka plundered with stone menace en route to a course record 63. At yesterday’s press conference, half of the room had fled in tow of Woods while Koepka claimed he was ready to win “double-figure majors” to the echoes of an auditorium. By the end of today, not an absent soul dared stir against him.

Supposedly one of the world’s most treacherous expanses of course with hairpin fairways mobbed by thick, long brushes of grass and eight acres of sand, Koepka treated it like a deadpan metronome. There was not a bogey, nor a blush. On his tenth hole, he sliced a 310-yard drive directly over the trees that guard the dog-leg into the rough and pitched out to within an arm’s reach of the hole with the effortless pendulum of a Karambit.

It was a devastating vein of golf by the sport’s best player. Few have ever dismantled the Black Course in such clinical fashion – when Woods won the US Open at Bethpage in 2002, he was the only player to finish under-par – but what was most remarkable was the guile with which Koepka careered to finish at seven-under, huge streaking birdie putts to complete the wire-to-wire demolition. He shrugged, swaggered, sighed at the long breaks in play with all the ambivalence and ennui that’s come to be expected from the wish-he-be baseball player, and blew away those in pursuit all the while.

Alongside him, Woods, who was playing his first competitive round since his heroism at Augusta, started with the wear and rust built by a one-month absence. He swept in last week on his $18m superyacht, skipped to an early practice round, but had barely emerged since as he nursed a still-aching body. Yesterday, as his peers flooded the range, he was nowhere to be seen.

And on the first hole, as he oversaw the beginning of Koepka’s computer game odyssey and thousands of New Yorkers jockeyed for position behind the rope, they were instead treated to a reminder of Woods’ 43-year-old mortality after all the myth and majesty of the Masters.

His drive found the rough, his strength would only allow him to spade it out to the end of the fairway and the near 500-yard behemoth par-four was taken in six. A double-bogey start, which he would spend the remaining 17 holes grappling to recover. A first birdie was followed by another double on the par-3, before a brilliant sprint at the turn where Woods went four-under-par through four holes.

Koepka took the lead with a formidable seven-under-par 63 (Getty)

Those were the bursts to evoke the trance of Augusta, but this was by no means Woods mainlining with the same breathless force. His putter ran a fraction untrue, his chipping a hint uncouth and three bogeys in his last five holes had him bobbing in the tides. After 18 holes, he is some nine shots back and has virtually drifted from the running.

For Francesco Molinari, the gloried third-wheel of the entourage, the fare was no easier. Two bogeys in the opening three holes were clawed back, only to run cul de sac on the back-nine, gridlocked on terms with Woods at two-over-par.

In fact, it was only Danny Lee, a 28-year-old South Korean with just a sole PGA Tour win to his name, who was the only man who stayed within Koepka’s wingmirrors. A year ago, Lee woke up and was unable to feel his legs due a plaguing back injury. He and his wife had even begun to make plans to open a Korean barbeque restaurant. Now the No 119 ranked player in the world lies in clear second after an outstanding 64 that has him three shots clear of third place.

Tiger Woods struggled in his first round since claiming victory at Augusta (Getty) (Getty Images)

There was still a glimmer of hope for that crop of elite Englishman who commandeered the early leaderboard before attempting to cling on. Not since 1919 has the PGA Championship been won by someone from home soil, but Matt Wallace raced into an early – albeit temporary – lead, before the ever reliable and lovable Tommy Fleetwood picked up the pieces and finished four shots back. Justin Rose and Paul Casey both linger on the outskirts at even par, but they are tracking the footsteps of a tour de force.

At one of golf’s greatest and most unforgiving challenges, what was most infuriating and fascinating about Koepka’s round was how he made it look that easy. This was his 10th successive round under par at majors. And as he made his way in, he crossed paths with Rory McIlroy as the Northern Irishman left the range to begin his opening salvo. Before McIlroy could even land his first blow, the tournament’s entire context had been changed. Under Farmingdale’s beating sun, the landscape had been scorched and every competitor is now despairingly chasing Koepka’s dusty trail. The trouble is, he’s never been one to slow down.