A word of warning to the rest of the field at the ONEflight Myrtle Beach Classic after Saturday’s third round:

Brooks Koepka is excited. Not just excited: REALLY excited.

“That’s the most excited I’ve been playing golf in a long, long time,” he said after a 7-under par 64 put the five-time major champion at 11-under and near the top of the leaderboard through 54 holes. “I can tell you that much. It’s, I would say, (since) back in ’23 (at) the PGA (Championship, the most recent of his five major victories).”

Bottom line:

“It’s been a long time since I’ve had fun playing golf.”

As anyone who’s followed the LIV Golf refuge since his return this year to the PGA Tour, that’s not good news for others at The Dunes Golf & Beach Club this weekend. The notion of Koepka rediscovering the form he had before LIV would signal a comeback and a breakthrough for one of the world’s elite players.

He’s not quite there, but Saturday was a good start, he said.

“Yeah, I’m super excited. It will be something I’ve been looking forward to for a while,” he said. “I feel like I’ve been knocking on the door (and) it’s very close.”

Koepka, who jumped through any number of hoops (including making a $5 million charitable donation) in order to regain a spot on the Tour, sits five shots behind Mark Hubbard, who shot his own 64 to reach 16-under. Second-round leader Aaron Rai of England (66) is at 15-under and Kevin Roy (65) at 14-under, while Brandt Snedeker, Mac Meissner and Beau Hossler are at 13-under.

Hubbard, whose best finish this year is a tie for 23rd with six missed cuts in 11 starts, credited his round to patience.

“I felt like I had some of the best ball control I’ve had all season, maybe my whole career today,” he said.

“I felt like I was kind of leaving a few (shots) out there, (and) a couple of weeks ago would’ve gotten pretty frustrated and turned a 64 into a 68. I just stayed really patient, just tried to keep hitting good shot after good shot.”

The play of Hubbard and other contenders notwithstanding, most of Saturday’s spectators were consumed by Koepka’s best-of-his-year round, especially his blistering back nine.

That 7-under 29, the lowest back-nine score in ONEflight history, included five birdies – as many as he recorded on the back in his first two rounds combined – plus an eagle at the par-5 15th on a monster putt of just under 39 feet.

That putt was, frankly, an outlier for Koepka, who since returning to the PGA Tour in January has struggled mightily on the Tour’s greens. At one point, he ranked in the top 10 in most tee-to-green categories but was an ugly 164th in putting.

That didn’t change much Saturday; instead, Koepka found other ways, notably on approach shots, to set up his torrid run.

“I liked the way I struck it today,” he said. “I thought I drove it beautifully, struck it with the irons really, really well. I just stuffed it all day.”

“That was kind of the thing. But I feel like I’ve been hitting the ball great for a long time (and) just started chipping a little bit better as well.”

The problem, he said, remains a familiar one:

“I haven’t holed any putts in, I think, I don’t know what.”

Besides a 15-foot birdie at the eighth hole:

“I didn’t hole anything. It’s been quite frustrating year with the flat stick.”

It was the same story during his back-nine sprint, where only a birdie putt of about 14 feet on the par-3 12th hole came from outside seven feet. Koepka’s other birdie putts on his second nine, courtesy of the PGA Tour: No. 10: 2 feet, 8 inches; No. 13: 6 feet, 2 inches; No. 14: 1 foot, 10 inches; No. 16: 5 feet, 5 inches. Each of his back-nine pars (11, 17 and 18) were less than two feet in length.

Koepka said the difference in his making and missing putts has been microscopic.

“I’ve just kind of been in consistent pattern of just hitting lips,” he said. “I don’t know if there’s a stat of how many times guys hit the lip, but I feel like I would be right up there this year.”

“They’re good putts. They just don’t go in. They just seem to always just miss or kind of find a way to miss the hole, and it’s been frustrating. But I’m just kind of waiting my turn, waiting for something good to happen, because I feel like as long as they’re good putts, I’m okay with it to a certain extent.”

Anyone who expected Koepka’s return to the PGA Tour after nearly three years away to be an immediate resumption of his old form has been largely disappointed.

In eight tournaments since January, his best finish was a tie for 9th at the Cognizant; he had top-20 results at The Players (T-13), Valspar (T-18) and The Masters (T-12). His year began with a tie for 56th at the Farmers Insurance, and he missed cuts at the WM Phoenix Open and the Zurich Classic, a two-man team event.

Before bailing on the PGA Tour to cash in on the LIV payday, Koepka had won nine times domestically and seven times on the European Tour. He racked up five victories on the LIV, where tournaments are 54 holes with team competition thrown in.

The PGA Tour, he concedes, is different.

With the Tour’s best 70 players competing at the signature Truist Championship in Charlotte this week, Koepka might’ve been considered a heavy favorite here if not for his play so far this year. But a win here this week would still be monumental for him.

“I guess maybe to everybody else (the ONEflight is a lesser challenge), but to me, I just look at it as a process of the whole thing,” he said.

“I don’t know when I expected to get into elevated events, but I said it earlier in the week: good play takes care of itself.”

“If I just play good, go out there and have a good result (Sunday), a good result the following week and the week after that … good golf takes care of a lot.”

The rest of this week’s field – and future ones – have been warned.