Abu Dhabi: Brooks Koepka had a day to forget at the Abu Dhabi HSBC Championship on Friday as he slumped to a torrid three-over 75 that included two double bogeys and three bogeys as his game fell apart on the tough AGC course.
The American was the first to admit it was his own fault while others, including Francesco Laporta, Rafa Cabrera Bello and Matthew Fitzpatrick thrived in sunny but blustery conditions.
The world No. 1 Koepka failed to capitalise on his six-under first round of 66 and floundered on a day where he just could not find his rhythm, terming it a bit of a disaster as he joked about not clicking for the “last 15 holes”.
In all fairness, it was looking good, with birdies on one and two, but then everything went wrong.
“My timing went off,” he said. “I didn’t hit that many good shots the last 15 holes. Hey, I was good on the first two but other than that, it was a bit of a disaster. Now I am going to go to the range and just figure it out. I couldn’t even find the fairways, so it was difficult.
“Obviously I will be off a little earlier on Saturday, so probably I won’t have to worry about the wind, shoot a low one and then we’ll see. We’ll see where Sunday ends up.”