Koepka rolling, everyone else 'playing for 2nd' at PGA Championship
Defending champ holds 7-shot lead heading into final round
Brooks Koepka is turning a public golf course into his private playground in the PGA Championship.
For the first time this week, he didn't touch any scoring records. That wasn't the objective.
Koepka kept his seven-shot lead going into a final round that feels more like a victory lap as he tries to join Tiger Woods as the only players to win back-to-back in stroke play at the PGA Championship.
WATCH | Koepka holds comfortable lead after 3rd round:
Asked if there was any doubt he would win, Koepka said flatly, "No."
"I feel confident. I feel good. I feel excited," he said, and only the last part was hard to believe because Koepka doesn't show much excitement about anything. He picks a shot and hits it, and over three days at Bethpage Black, the ball is going exactly how he wants.
Koepka has the largest 54-hole lead in the PGA Championship since it switched to stroke play in 1958, and no one has lost a seven-shot lead in 159 years of major championship golf. In fact, no one has lost more than a six-shot lead in any PGA Tour event.
Adam Hadwin (70) of Abbotsford, B.C., was tied for 26th at 2 over. Corey Conners (76) of Listowel, Ont., was tied for 77th at 10 over.
Dustin Johnson tried to make a run with six birdies, only to stall with five bogeys in his round of 69. No bogey was more damaging than the 18th. A drive into the fairway would have given the world's No. 1 player a reasonable shot at birdie. Instead, he sent it right into bunker, came up well short into the native grass, left the next one in the bunker and had to scramble to limit the damage.
Koepka, who was at 12-under 198, will play the final round with Harold Varner III, whose week began with plans to play a practice round with Woods on the eve of the PGA Championship until Woods called in sick.
Varner birdied the 18th to cap off a bogey-free 67 and lead the group at 5-under 205 that includes Jazz Janewattananond (67) and Luke List, who holed two shots from off the green for a 69.
"I think we're all playing for second," List said.
Jordan Spieth did not put any pressure on Koepka at all. Playing in the final group on the weekend for the first time since the British Open last summer, Spieth didn't have a realistic birdie chance until the sixth hole, and he missed that one from eight feet. He shot 72 and was nine shots behind.
There was simply no stopping Koepka, who is one round away from a fourth major in his last eight tries and a return to No. 1 in the world. Koepka also would become the first player to hold back-to-back major titles at the same time. He won his second straight U.S. Open last year at nearby Long Island at Shinnecock Hills.