McKINNEY, Texas \u2014 Scottie Scheffler won’t be the wire-to-wire winner of his hometown CJ Cup Byron Nelson again this year.<\/p>\n
For now, the world’s top-ranked player is chasing Brooks Koepka, the five-time major champion looking for his first victory since returning to the PGA Tour from LIV Golf.<\/p>\n
Koepka shot 8-under 63 for a one-shot lead over five other early finishers at the revamped TPC Craig Ranch on Thursday, with Scheffler three back while playing with Koepka and Si Woo Kim, one of those at 64.<\/p>\n
\u201cI felt like I was getting lapped out there for a little bit,\u201d said Scheffler, who led from the start of last year’s Nelson and won by eight shots at 31 under while tying the tour’s 72-hole scoring record at 253. \u201cSo I was fortunate to make a couple birdies late in the round and keep myself in the tournament.\u201d<\/p>\n
Kim \u2014 the highest-ranked player in the field behind Scheffler at No. 24 \u2014 had the only bogey in the threesome, on his 16th hole at the par-3 seventh.<\/p>\n
One of several countrymen in the event sponsored by South Korean conglomerate CJ Group, Kim got back within a shot of the lead with a birdie while Koepka saved par 5 at the ninth.<\/p>\n
Emiliano Grillo, Keith Mitchell, Stephan Jaeger and Michael Thorbjornsen were tied with Kim, one shot ahead of Doug Ghim and Mackenzie Hughes.<\/p>\n
Koepka, who contended at last week’s PGA Championship before fading on Sunday, eagled the par-5 12th and was 4 under through five holes. He had four more birdies in a span of five holes in his back nine, capped by a 3-foot birdie putt on the short par-4 sixth.<\/p>\n
Kim had four birdies on the front and four more on the back while Scheffler was lagging at 2 under before getting birdies on three of his final five holes.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was just a comfortable group,\u201d Koepka said. \u201cEveryone is just kind of feeding off each other, easy. Everyone\u2019s having fun. Makes it enjoyable. I feel comfortable on the golf course as well.\u201d<\/p>\n
Even though he hardly recognizes parts of it.<\/p>\n
Koepka last played at TPC Craig Ranch in 2021, the year before he bolted for LIV. The sixth Nelson at the par-71 layout about 30 miles north of Dallas was the debut of a Lanny Wadkins-led redesign that cost nearly $25 million and added bunkers everywhere and overhauled the greens with mounds and ridges.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe greens are totally different than when we played,\u201d Koepka said. \u201cThat\u2019s obviously the biggest thing. Off the tee it looks pretty good. Place hasn\u2019t changed too much. It\u2019s familiar. I like it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Koepka was a regular at the Nelson a decade ago, including a runner-up finish in 2016 when he lost to Sergio Garcia in a playoff. The 36-year-old also has a little CJ Cup history. He rose to No. 1 in the world with a victory when the event was in South Korea in 2018.<\/p>\n
The title sponsorship moved to the U.S. after the COVID-19 pandemic and has been associated with the Nelson since 2024.<\/p>\n
The move to LIV forced Koepka to put aside things such as world rankings, and now he’s dealing with stipulations he had to agree to in order to rejoin the PGA Tour. Among them is not being exempt for the $20 million signature events, even though he won a major \u2014 the 2023 PGA \u2014 while with LIV.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think there\u2019s such a huge difference right now of trying to get into signature events, on my way back, coming back to the tour,\u201d Koepka said. \u201c(Winning) would be a big confidence boost for sure because I feel like I\u2019ve been playing well. I feel like I\u2019m knocking on the door, and I\u2019m very, very close.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"McKINNEY, Texas \u2014 Scottie Scheffler won’t be the wire-to-wire winner of his hometown CJ Cup Byron Nelson again…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":685049,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[443],"tags":[49,48,622,82],"class_list":["post-685048","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-golf","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-golf","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/685048","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=685048"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/685048\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/685049"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=685048"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=685048"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=685048"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}