Brooks Koepka tied for lead after round one at Augusta

AUGUSTA, Ga. — The last we heard from Brooks Koepka at a major it was not pretty.

In fact, the last four times Koepka teed it up on golf’s biggest stages, it was downright ugly.

But that was one gimpy knee, one baring-of-soul episode on Netflix, and two LIV Golf wins ago. In fact, that might as well have been before the pre-majors monster Koepka, when he would roll into the week with a chip on his shoulder the size of his Jupiter waterfront estate.

Now, that seems like so long ago. Especially after Koepka’s opening-round 65 Thursday, his best-ever round at the Masters, put him in a three-way tie for first place with Viktor Hovland and Jon Rahm.

“Beware of a healthy B.K.,” said Bob Koepka, Brooks’ dad.

Brooks hinted three weeks ago at a LIV event outside Tucson that the mentally broken man we saw on “Full Swing” was back together again. He promised his knee — one he said one day will need to be replaced — no longer is holding him back and his confidence was at 2018 levels.

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And he reiterated that Thursday after a round that included eight birdies, including the final two holes, and one bogey.

“Once you feel good, everything changes,” he said.

And what does it mean to feel good?

“Wake up pain-free. Being able to move. Not having to get shot up to play. Not having to do anything. It’s been nice just to … It’s a new normal. But it’s definitely pretty close to what it was.”

This is a man whose confidence a year ago was as shattered as his kneecap was in early 2021 and who now has erased that self-doubt by wiping most of 2022 from his mind.

Koepka’s last four PGA Tour events entering this week were the 2022 majors where he missed two cuts (Masters and British Open) and finished 55th twice (PGA Championship and U.S. Open). In his mind, they don’t exist, just like the 2021 Masters that he played less than a month after that knee surgery and missed the cut.

“I don’t really count the last two,” Koepka said this week about the Masters. “One of them was three weeks after surgery, so just figuring out how to walk the place was tough enough. Just still wasn’t a hundred percent last year. So to me, I don’t really count those.”

Koepka’s last four Masters rounds entering Thursday: 74, 75, 75, 75.

Birdie putts of 12, 14 and 31 feet on the front nine assured him there would be no repeat of the past two years at Augusta National. And it could have been better….