After lightning Byron Nelson start, has Brooks Koepka finally found the right putter?

Pretty much immediately since Brooks Koepka's return to the PGA Tour fold, it's felt like he's been on the cusp of finding his former major-winning form.

Despite a tumultuous year that saw him depart long-time equipment sponsor Srixon/Cleveland for free agency, the five-time major winner has been one of the Tour's most consistent ball strikers. The glaring issue, for which Koepka himself seemingly had no apparent answer, was his putting.

Koepka's struggles on the greens snowballed over the course of the season to become an almost unavoidable talking point in the lead-up to the PGA Championship. There were even reports that he'd broken his putter after a particularly poor display with the flat stick at the Truist Championship.

The American came into the championship ranked pretty much dead last on the tour in total putting, and was actually giving up around two shots per tournament just through putting alone.

This, quite naturally, led to a revolving door of putter choices making their way into, and then almost immediately out of, Koepka's bag. In the space of this year he's tried four different makes and models of putter, transitioning away from a blade and into a series of more forgiving mallets, most recently TaylorMade's Spider Tour V (a failed experiment which saw him rank in the lower half of the field for strokes gained on the greens).

This week, however, another putter switch seems to have unlocked a new feel for Koepka on the greens. Armed with a mid-mallet Scotty Cameron 1.5 Fastback, Koepka got off to a lightning start in the first round at The CJ CUP Byron Nelson, shooting a bogey-free 63 to take the lead of the early starters.

More importantly, however, Koepka was among the best putters of the day with the new Scotty in-hand. 

“Finally, I felt good with the putter,” Koepka said his round. "I felt good the last few days with it when I was working in my studio. Then when I got here, it felt comfortable."

It should go without saying that if Koepka truly has made a breakthrough with his putting, the rest of the tour (and, of course, next year's Ryder Cup selectors should be on high alert). 

Even with his struggles so far this season, he's returned to being one of the the most effective scorers in the game, ranking 12th on tour in total scoring average and in the top 30 for total shots gamed. Indeed, he's in the upper percentiles by pretty much every metric outside of putting, and is particularly deadly attacking the pins, ranking third on tour in approach play. 

As such, it's fair to say that if he's truly found a putter to suit his game, he'd be mad to make a change any time soon.