We may officially be in the Brooks Koepka era.
He matched Rory’s US Open record of 16-under to claim his first major, the 2017 US Open at Erin Hills. At the same event last year he fought through unbelievably difficult Sunday conditions at Shinnecock Hills to survive the early-posted score of Tommy Fleetwood. He then held off his childhood idol, Mr. Woods, with arguably the most perfect Sunday back nine I’ve ever witnessed at the PGA a year ago at Bellerive.
And now, for the fourth time in his last eight major starts, Brooks Koepka is your champion.
And what a performance it was.
What should be most troubling to his peers is not the fact that he won, but the manner in which he did so.
For the first three rounds at Bethpage Black, probably the most terrifying public course on planet Earth, Brooks Koepka was not playing golf. If we assume that the other 155 guys in the field are pretty good at the sport, we need to come up with another word for what Brooks was doing out there.
He dominated every player in the field in ball striking for the first few days, both off the tee and going into greens. He was both hitting greens in regulation as well as scrambling for pars at a higher rate than anyone else in the field, a pair of stats that you never see the same guy lead. And his putter… 14 birdies in the opening two rounds, on that course, is nothing short of insanity.
This article could just be me going on and on about how scary this man is for golf’s future, and a lot of it will be. But as I watched, both his on-course performance and his interviews after his rounds, all I could think about was how polarizing this guy really is. And I don’t mean polarizing in the sense that some people love him and some people hate him, I mean polarizing just for myself personally. I’m still completely torn on what to think of this guy. If this truly is going to be the Brooks Koepka era of the PGA Tour, well, I really want to like the guy.
But damn does he make it tough on me.
I’ve used the word “transformation” in the title of this article because that is exactly what I witnessed. In four days in New York, Brooks Koepka seemed to transform from a man more arrogant than confident to a humble and gracious champion. The only question now is, were the latter qualities simply reactions to nearly coughing up a seven-stroke lead on Sunday, or is this an evolved Brooks Koepka that the general public can easily get behind… only time will tell.
I’ll just say this. You don’t have to be the perfect man in order to garner love in sport. I mean, Tiger Woods is the most loved golfer of all time… ‘nuff said. What you do need to have is respect for the game, and for your fellow competitors. I don’t care one bit about how Koepka chooses to carry himself off the course. I don’t care if he wants to walk around with a Jupiter-sized chip on his shoulder for all his life. I even appreciate how he outspoken he has become about the issues on the Tour. However, if he wants my respect he has to show some, and in this area, Brooks has some growing up to do.
Alright, I’m getting ahead of myself already. Let me dig into this and explain to you what I’m talking about. Let me show you what I mean by the transformation of Brooks Koepka.
THURSDAY – KOEPKA EMBARRASSES BETHPAGE
Thursday was freaky, and it started immediately. Playing in the morning with a couple of so-so talents, Tiger Woods and Francesco Molinari, it was instantly apparent that Koepka was on a mission. Starting on the treacherous 10th, Koepka drilled a long-range birdie from the fringe while the other two played the hole a combined three-over. His ball striking was brilliant all day, and his putter was even better.
It looked like Brooks was on an entirely different golf course than everyone else. 155 men grinded their way through the monstrosity that is Bethpage Black. Bogeys, doubles, triples, everywhere you looked there was a superstar getting chewed up by one of the many horrifying holes at Bethpage. Meanwhile, this Floridian beast was destroying the course. Seven birdies and no bogeys, and the scariest part is that he actually may have left a couple out there. Danny Lee would fire a sparkling round in the afternoon, but it was mostly an afterthought. Thursday confirmed what many golf fans suspected going in: majors played on long venues with nasty thick rough will belong to Brooks Koepka until proven otherwise.
Here’s the bad. Before the week began, Koepka stated that the reason three of his five PGA victories (now four of six) are majors is because they are the “easiest” to win. To paraphrase, he essentially said that he was just going to beat half the field no matter what, that half the reminder wouldn’t play well, and that the pressure will overcome the majority of those that do play well., leaving only a couple of guys for him to really compete against.
You just can’t say that.
What are Rickie Fowler, Matt Kuchar, Paul Casey, Ian Poulter, and Steve Stricker (great players without majors) supposed to think about those comments. Or even players like Dustin Johnson, who’s been successful in this sport for much longer than his good buddy Brooks, with just one major title to show for it. Does Koepka really think he’s the only guy that can handle it? Does he really believe that’s the reason he is dominating right now?
If it is, he’s wrong. Hell yeah he’s confident, you don’t need him to tell you for that to be obvious. He always looks dialed in, he pounds the ball harder than anyone else out there right now, his putting stroke is gorgeous, and his iron play is the kind of thing dreams are made of. He’s not winning these majors because the field can’t handle it, he’s winning because the field can’t handle him.
He’s better than everyone else right now, simple as that. Why can’t that be enough for Brooks? Why does he have to hint that the rest of the field is weak? Just be the best and the world will follow. His performance on Thursday made the statement that he is clearly the premier player in the world at this moment. For whatever reason there are highly acclaimed golf critics (cough, cough, Brandel Chamblee) that don’t believe that this cat is among the worlds best. If Koepka wants to use that to motivate himself, well by all means. But when you play golf this well you don’t need to play the victim. Hopefully this week ends that part of Koepka’s persona. Hopefully now he can just dominate and not feel the need to respond with anything other than trophies.
FRIDAY – KOEPKA EMBARRASSES THE FIELD
Friday at the PGA was easily the best day for scoring. Jordan Spieth, who astonishingly entered the championship without a top-20 finish on the year, looked more like the real Spieth than he has for quite some time. He played the best round of his season firing six birdies to put him at five-under for the tournament, good enough for a final pairing tee time on Saturday. Dustin Johnson looked like he would be Koepka’s biggest competition all week, but unlike his buddy he couldn’t keep the squares of his scorecard. He made five birdies in a seven-hole stretch on the back on Friday, but three costly bogeys left him eight behind heading in to the weekend.
Unfortunately for Spieth and DJ, and everyone else that went low on Friday, Koepka came back ready to play once again. While it wasn’t as spotless of a round as he played Thursday, the trouble he would find on Friday appeared much less troubling to Brooks than the rest of the field. This is a real problem for anyone that wants to try to take a tournament on a beastly major venue from Koepka. When he’s dialed in he’s going to go lower than you, and when he puts the ball in difficult positions he’s making his recoveries look easier than you too. Pretty lethal combination.
Was it as perfect as Thursday? No. But Koepka still shot a 5-under 65 on Friday, only one stroke off the days lowest score. He put it tight on both the 1st and 2nd, birdieing each and extending his lead early. He had seven birdies on the card for the second straight day, and caught several above average lies in the thick rough at Bethpage. Furthermore, he missed a couple short makeable birdies just as he had Thursday. I can’t stress this enough, Brooks Koepka obliterated this monstrosity of a golf course for the first two rounds. His lead was at seven at the end of the day Friday, but having watched every second of both rounds that lead could easily have been in double digits. Even the players that were having some success were running into insurmountable trouble at least a couple times per round. Brooks is really the only guy that looked like he could’ve gone even lower than he did.
However, his reaction to his round would not suggest any of this to be true. Here was a man that was in the midst of a quest to become the first man in the history of the sport to hold two different majors back-to-back simultaneously. He had just set the largest margin of lead through two rounds of a PGA at seven. And, to top it all off, despite probably being able to shoot even lower than he did, Brooks Koepka is now the record holder for the lowest 36-hole score in major championship history. Forget playing a different golf course than everyone else, Koepka was playing a different sport.
That same man was bitter coming off the golf course Friday evening.
“I did not hit it well.”
That is a quote from a man that hit 30 putts in his Friday 65. You can’t shoot 65 with 30 putts without hitting it well… on any golf course, let alone Bethpage Black. He just made seven birdies for the second straight day, and finished just one shot off having the best round of the day yet again.
My point, once again, is that you just can’t say that. The best players on the planet are all in a slugfest with this golf course, what the hell is the field supposed to think of this guy when he says things like that? What are fans supposed to think? Is this guy really this smug? By saying he’s not hitting it well with a seven shot lead is a slap in the face to the golf world. Koepka can’t play two near flawless rounds on this true test of golf and then tell the world he doesn’t have his game. It just ain’t right, even if he does truly believe it. Koepka is dominating the world of golf right now, and he’s clearly upset that people don’t give him the credit he deserves, otherwise he wouldn’t have responded to Chamblee’s comments the way he did. The answer is simple… maybe start carrying yourself with a little more respect for what you’re accomplishing instead of maintaining an aura of sheer arrogance.
In the immortal words of John Torterella’s press conference, “I guess that’s what I’m saying Brooksy. You get that through your head?”
I’m so glad I got a chance to use that.
SATURDAY – “NOT-MOVING” DAY
Saturday’s in majors are known as moving day because it’s the last chance for the field to make a move up the leaderboard without the microscope that is on every swing on Sunday.
This was one of the most uninteresting moving days that I can remember.
The thing with courses like Bethpage is that when conditions are tough there isn’t much of a chance to make a surge. After the first two rounds, all Koepka had to do was maintain his position. He shot even par, accomplishing this goal, and carried a seven stroke lead into Sunday.
SUNDAY – HUMILITY THROUGH ADVERSITY
No player in the history of the sport has ever lost a tournament leading by seven through three days, major or otherwise. Brooks Koepka would come dangerously close, and it’s due to a wild Sunday in New York that signs of the transformation of Koepka surfaced.
Koepka’s first ten holes on Sunday were reminiscent of the Sundays in his three prior major victories. Sure he bogeyed the relatively harmless opening hole. But other than that it was exactly the kind of front nine one wants when having a dominant lead in a major. He played to the safe parts of the greens, leaving himself a sequence of manageable two putts. Tap-in pars, one after the other, perfect leading golf.
Koepka’s ho-hum front nine, while not highlight reel, was brilliant. Bethpage was playing it’s toughest in the final round. Just ask Koepka’s Sunday pairing partner Harold Varner III, who after birdieing the first for an early two-shot swing in his favour proved unable to circle any other numbers on the card, en route to a devastating 81 to drop him out of the top-30. Want evidence of a guy in complete control of a golf tournament? Koepka even joined Varner for a trip into the woods on a missing ball mission. Can you picture Eldrick doing that in that spot?
10 of the top 11 players on the leaderboard behind Koepka entering Sunday were over par in the final round. In other words, Bethpage smoked 10 out of the 11 men that had any chance to put a scare into Brooks on Sunday. The wind was howling, and with the way Brooks had been playing all week it appeared he just had to hold serve (so to speak), just like he was on the front nine.
Unfortunately for Brooksy it was DJ, his good friend and one of the most adored players on tour, who was the 11th man.
I’m not using the term unfortunate because Johnson was the only guy that could charge all the way to Koepka’s number, because no one could. It was unfortunate because he was probably the only contender, save perhaps for Jordan Spieth, who could have turned the gallery the way Johnson did.
Maybe it was because Koepka had made what was supposed to be a tight-knit grind between 156 worthy combatants into a one-man show for three-and-a-half days. Maybe the New York fans just wanted things to be interesting, no matter who made the move on Koepka. Of maybe the fans just love DJ, which is obviously true. But this was more than that. Every shot that got away from Koepka on the back nine on Sunday was followed by ground shaking chants for DJ, which I have to say lacked the class that for the most part prevails among golf crowds. Nevertheless, this truth serves as evidence for what was really happening down the stretch on Sunday: despite this looking a lot like the Brooks Koepka era, I am clearly not the only golf fan that is having issues getting on board.
I can’t remember the last time I saw Johnson play that well. Three birdies and no bogeys on the front, in those Sunday conditions at Bethpage, was magnificent. His powerful cut swing was flawless. His putting stroke pure. And the swagger was undeniable.
After ten holes of play, Koepka’s lead over DJ was six. With the treacherous back nine ahead, Koepka’s mission remained just to stay the course. As long as he didn’t blow up, his fourth major was in the bag. But the golf course clearly got significantly tougher for the usually unflappable Koepka when the gallery’s allegiance became squarely embedded in DJ’s corner.
This change, as I alluded to earlier, was just as much due to poor play from Koepka as it was the charge from Johnson. I am convinced this has a lot to do with the humility Koepka showcased after the completion of the tournament. I believe it was the reality of golf fans rooting for his failure that, at least temporarily, flipped a switch for Brooks. It isn’t just respected golf analysts that aren’t giving him credit, his bold demeanor and apparent lack of respect has put Koepka in a position unfamiliar to player’s who demonstrate this type of dominance. When Rory won his fourth major, and Jordan his third, the majority of the golf world was behind them because fans like to see guys separate themselves in the majors. That obviously isn’t how fans feel about Koepka, as the back nine on Sunday at Bethpage revealed. I’ve never seen a guy have so many credentials and get so little support on a major Sunday.
It started with a bogey at 11. The wind had reached its peak for the week, and with such a massive lead Koepka conservatively laid up from a fairway bunker and was unable to get up-and-down, the lead was down to five. His tee shot on 12 disappeared in the rough right of the fairway, leading to his first missed green-in-regulation on holes 12-16 for the week, and another bogey. With the gallery starting to sense the change, Koepka’s tee shot on the par-5 13th was yanked hard left, and led to the first six on his scorecard all week.
Up ahead, DJ made a phenomenal birdie on 15, and the lead was down to two. Suddenly, the Brooks Koepka show had evolved into a golf tournament.
Perhaps it was because this was the first major Sunday for Koepka where he wasn’t involved in a battle beginning at the first tee, as this was the first time that I’ve seen the expression on Koepka’s face appear human as he chased down a championship. He hit way too much club on the par-3 14th, leaving him an impossible par save. To make matters worse, the second the ball landed in a terrible spot over the green the crowd erupted in DJ chants. Never in my life have I ever heard a gallery roar when the leader hits a brutal shot. I found myself feeling pretty bad for Brooks at that moment.
His demeanor was different now. It was getting to him. His eyes were no longer pure with determination. There was definite fear. He lost his audience, and if he didn’t smarten up immediately, the PGA Championship was next. His fourth straight bogey had reduced the lead to one. For the first time in his career since becoming the dominant superstar he is, Koepka was forced to understand just how hard winning major championships really is.
With the way he won at Erin Hills, Shinnecock, and Bellerive, being part of the mix and just dominating the field on Sunday, it is somewhat understandable (though not inexcusable) for Koepka to have built the arrogance he flaunts in his media encounters. I contend that it took a near collapse like the one we saw last week for Brooks to see the other side of things. Now he was the guy who was expected to run away with it, and it was a loss of confidence, the very thing he so brazenly states he has more of than anyone else of Tour, that almost did him in.
It was a completely different form of adversity, one that Brooks had never experienced before, and it set the stage for the arrival of a new version of Koepka. Johnson’s charge finally came to a halt with a pair of late bogeys, but even though he didn’t win, in my opinion DJ’s move will have a lasting effect on his good friend for which Koepka should forever be thankful.
Brooks’ reaction to winning this major was entirely different from the first three. A massive fist pump as he drained his final putt, a long embrace with his caddy, and an ear-to-ear smile that shattered his reputation as a passionless beast.
“This is so cool. I’m still in shock right now. This is awesome.”
That’s the guy the golf world wants. That’s the kind of champion this sport wants to embrace. Majors are the easiest to win? Well, I doubt we’ll be hearing that again. If he keeps playing like he is, Koepka will be the favourite heading into every major that isn’t the British Open for the foreseeable future. It took him a while to get to this level. He wasn’t a young phenom like Spieth or McIlroy. But at age 29 Koepka is still just entering his golfing prime. If something really did change in Koepka in four days at Bethpage, if he can show he’s capable of appreciating the mark he could leave on this beautiful sport, and more importantly capable of giving the sport and his competitors due respect, then Brooksy, you have my full support. But if he returns to the smug and arrogant behemoth that has turned him off from many fans and analysts already, it will continue to be tough for me to get behind this guy.
If we’re in the Brooks Koepka era, that’s fine by me. I just really want to like the guy if that’s the case, and that remains to be seen. I was happy for the man that won on Sunday at Bethpage, a new and different version of Koepka. But the Brooks that we’ve seen for the majority of this dominant run has been a difficult guy to cheer for. Therefore I hope I’m right. I’m hopeful that in four days at Bethpage State Park we truly witnessed the transformation of Koepka.