World quantity three Rory McIlroy and newly topped PGA Championship winner Brooks Koepka will make for a spicy pairing within the first two rounds of the 123rd US Open at Los Angeles Country Club.
The two will tee off on the par-70 North Course alongside 2021 Masters champion Hideki Matsuyama at 1:54 pm (2054 GMT) on Thursday when the US Open returns to Los Angeles for the primary time because it was held at Riviera Country Club in 1948.
Koepka handed McIlroy’s complete of 4 main titles when he received his fifth on the PGA Championship at Oak Hill final month.
McIlroy hasn’t lifted a serious trophy since he received the PGA Championship and Open Championship in 2014 — a drought that drew a dig from Koepka again in 2019 when the American famous that McIlroy hadn’t received a serious “since I’ve been on the PGA Tour.”
“I just don’t view it as a rivalry,” Koepka stated again then. “I’m not looking at anybody behind me.”
The two additionally ended up on reverse sides when Koepka made the leap to the Saudi-backed LIV Golf circuit, with McIlroy championing the PGA Tour.
The bombshell deal introduced final week that can have the PGA Tour and DP World Tour becoming a member of forces with LIV’s Saudi backers has raised loads of questions, and the ill-feeling received’t evaporate in a single day.
McIlroy himself stated after the deal was introduced that he nonetheless “hates” LIV, though he did say he believed Koepka’s PGA Championship win — the primary main triumph for a LIV golfer — confirmed he deserved to play within the Ryder Cup.
Among different marquee teams, Masters champion Jon Rahm, ranked second on this planet, tees off on the tenth gap at 8:24 on Thursday alongside sixth-ranked American Xander Schauffele and world quantity 5 Viktor Hovland of Norway.
World primary Scottie Scheffler, the 2022 Masters champion, goes off at 8:13 taking part in with two-time main winner Collin Morikawa and Max Homa.
The trio are among the many few within the discipline who’ve performed event golf at Los Angeles Country Club.
Morikawa and Scheffler had been on the US Walker Cup staff that beat Britain and Ireland on the North Course in 2017 whereas Homa holds the course document of 61 — shot within the first spherical of the 2013 US collegiate Pacific-12 convention championship.
Somewhat bit completely different
Defending champion Matt Fitzpatrick of England will paly the primary two rounds alongside reigning British Open champion Cameron Smith of Australia — one other LIV Golf participant — and American Sam Bennett.
Bennett has turned professional since incomes low novice honors on the Masters.
Both Fitzpatrick and Smith had been slowing attending to know the course as of Monday. From what he’d seen up to now, Smith stated, it might supply a unique sort of US Open problem.
“I guess we’re used to that kind of really thick, juicy rough,” Smith stated. “It’s a little bit different here. I think the Bermuda rough, I think you can get kind of lucky or unlucky.
“There’s patches out there where they’re actually quite thin and you can get away with kind of a bad shot and other patches where if you’re in there it’s no good at all. I think that’s a little bit different.
“I think the way you go through the hills there a few times, there’s lots of shots where you almost have to work the ball into the hill. It’s a really good challenge.”