Luke List tees off on the eighth hole during the second round of the PGA Championship on Friday in Farmingdale, N.Y. List shot his second straight 68 and was tied for fourth but eight strokes out of the lead.FARMINGDALE, N.Y. - The power. The putting. The poise.
Brooks Koepka has it all at this PGA Championship, along with the lowest 36-hole score in major championship history and the largest lead by anyone at the halfway point of a Grand Slam golf tournament in 85 years.
It was daunting to so many in the field who watched Koepka pull away to a seven-shot lead Friday on the Black Course at Bethpage State Park. It looked all too familiar to Tiger Woods, who won't be around to see the ending.
Koepka backed up his record-tying opening 63 with a second round that put him in a league of his own. He opened with three birdies in a four-hole stretch and made three birdies over the closing four holes for a 5-under-par 65 that broke by two shots the lowest 36-hole score - 128 - in any major.
Woods, who was paired with Koepka and 2018 British Open champion Francesco Molinari, was along for the ride - a short one, in this case, because he missed the 4-over cut by a stroke. He marveled at the 29-year-old Koepka hitting 7-iron into a par 5, and a 9-iron into the uphill, 477-yard 15th hole.
"Relative to the field, I was about that long early in my career," Woods said. "When you're able to hit the ball much further than other players, and get on the right golf courses where setups like this are penalizing if you are a little bit crooked, and if he does miss it, he misses on the correct side, and he's far enough down there to where he was able to get the ball on the green he did all the little things right."
That describes Woods at Bethpage Black the first time this working man's public course hosted a major, the 2002 U.S. Open. Woods rolled to a wire-to-wire victory during a time he was winning majors at an alarming rate.
Koepka, who has won three of the past seven majors - last year's PGA Championship and the past two U.S. Opens - appears to be headed down a similar path.
Jordan Spieth had a 66 in the morning in a bid to keep in range. Adam Scott had a 64 in the afternoon. They were tied for second at 5-under 135, seven shots behind and victims of the largest 36-hole lead in a major since Henry Cotton led by nine in the 1934 British Open.
"It has to come to an end eventually, that good front-running," Scott said with a smile. "Let's hope it's not 12 years like Tiger's front-running lasted."
After missing the cut at the PGA Championship the past two years, Luke List broke through in a big way on his third try. The former Baylor School standout posted his second straight 68 and was part of the five-way tie for fourth place at 4 under. Also in fourth were top-ranked Dustin Johnson (67), Daniel Berger (66), Kelly Kraft (65) and Matt Wallace (67).
What looked like a smooth ride for List on Friday apparently didn't feel that way to him.
"It was a grind, actually. Just kind of pieced it together a little bit," he told reporters afterward. "I was pretty happy with 2 under. It was gettable today. Obviously Brooks is up there tearing it up. I was really hoping to make a few more birdies on the back nine there, and really played down and unfortunate not to."
List started on No. 10 Friday afternoon, with a birdie on the par-5 13th the only interruption to a string of pars on his first 11 holes. He dropped a shot on the par-3 third but wiped it out with an eagle on the next hole, a par 5, then made another birdie on the fifth. He made his second bogey of the round on No. 8.
List is now 3-for-9 in making the cut at major tournaments, having tied for 33rd at the 2005 Masters and 39th at last year's British Open. The 34-year-old former Ringgold resident has never won a PGA Tour event, and if he pulls off the feat this weekend, he doesn't expect it to come easily - or simply by his willpower.
"Obviously we all need help from Brooks," List said. "We have to go out and do some good work on the weekend. It's going to take something special."
Another former Baylor standout, Keith Mitchell, followed his opening 74 with a 71 and missed the cut by a stroke. The 27-year-old Chattanooga native earned his first PGA Tour victory at the Honda Classic in March and made the cut last month at the Masters in his first major tournament, which turned out to be Woods' 15th victory in such events.
The revival of Tigermania that resulted, though, no longer has the hope of a calendar year Grand Slam for Woods, whose Friday at Bethpage Black was a far cry from his most recent Sunday at Augusta National.
Woods didn't hit a fairway until the ninth hole, and then he started the back nine with three straight bogeys, turning his mission into hanging around for the weekend. He wound up with a 73 and missed the cut for just the ninth time in 76 majors as a professional.
He saw quite a show for two days, though.
"He's driving it 330 yards in the middle of the fairway. He's got 9-irons when most of us are hitting 5-irons, 4-irons, and he's putting well," Woods said of Koepka. "That adds up to a pretty substantial lead, and if he keeps doing what he's doing, there's no reason why he can't build on this lead."
Just imagine what Koepka could do if he really brings it.
"This probably sounds bad," Koepka said, "but today was a battle. I didn't strike it that good. The way I hung in there today and battled it, I think that was probably more impressive than yesterday, not having your 'A' game but still being able to shoot a great score."
Spieth was hopeful of being in contention at a major for the first time since the British Open last summer, and he made key putts for par and a 40-foot birdie putt toward the end of his 66 to get within two shots before Koepka teed off in the afternoon. It was close enough - at the time, anyway - for Spieth to get queried about the missing piece of a career Grand Slam at the PGA Championship.
"If I'm able to put some good work in tomorrow, I will be in contention on Sunday. And at that point, it will be just more of trying to win a golf tournament," he said.
His goal was to stay in range, and Spieth felt he did enough.
Scott, who pushed Koepka all the way to end at last year's PGA Championship at Bellerive Country Club in St. Louis, ran in putts from 25 feet, 40 feet and 30 feet on the opening three holes - only to settle for par on the next hole, the easiest one at Bethpage Black - and was 7 under with four holes to play, giving him a chance to break the tournament record of 63 that Koepka had matched the day before.
That bid ended when Scott missed a par putt from two feet on the 17th hole, and he had to get up-and-down from the fairway for par on the 18th. Then he saw what Koepka was doing.
"I have to post two more good ones by the look of it at this stage," Scott said.
Everyone needs help from Koepka, who didn't seem the least bit interested in anything but another major title.
"I'd like to see that lead grow as large as it possibly can," Koepka said. "I still have to go out there and do what I'm supposed to do, keep putting the ball in the right spot and make sure that you don't make any double bogeys, and I should have a good chance of winning the championship."