PITTSFORD, NY – Six weeks ago on Sunday, Brooks Koepka didn’t sleep. He has cherished work to do and demons to chase. After everything – the terrible knee injury, the pain of unfulfilled ambition, the taunts and the rift in the professional golf he helped make – he rose to life. led the Masters Tournament, and then he failed. It’s really falling apart
Ultimately, he swore, he recalled last weekend at Oak Hill Country Club, to never “think the way I thought to get to the finals.” On Sunday night, Koepka found his proof: a two-stroke win at the PGA Championship, earning him his first major tournament trophy since 2019. It was his fifth major career win. by Koepka, linking him to characters like Seve Ballesteros and Byron Nelson.
It also made him the first member of LIV Golf, the longstanding breakaway tournament sponsored by Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund, to win a major title since entering the circuit. And while Koepka’s victory at Oak Hill may alleviate some of the criticism of LIV – its ties to a repressive government, its controversial intentions, its jubilant instigation. about a financial arms race in an ancient sport – it put an end to the controversy over whether men who played little in 54-hole tournaments could prevail on 72nd stages golf’s biggest hole.
The view, a view that seemed a little more off-topic after the Masters at Augusta National, that Koepka’s playing days were over was extinguished with a score of 3 below par 67 on Sunday. But here is a 33-year-old player whose results in the big 2022 season look like this: slip cut, draw 55, solo 55, slip cut. It’s easy to forget that in 2021, the sequence goes like this: missed, tied second, tied fourth, tied sixth.
At the end of last year, he had a growing hunch that his recovery was almost complete and that he could finally get involved again. Around January, he said, he was sure of it.
“He is healthy again,” said Cameron Smith, who won the British Open last summer and then joined LIV at the end of the year. “I think that gives a little bit of confidence inside as well as being on the outside and just being able to do your job.”
It wasn’t like that as recently as Thursday, when the prospect of Koepka outlasting a host of stars seemed almost more improbable than even improbable. He opened his tournament with a 72-beat win over the two and, in his own words, he struggled and struggled to hit the ball as he wanted. He said he couldn’t remember the last time he played so poorly.
But he wasn’t too far behind for the tournament, the first major tournament to take place at Oak Hill since a sweeping effort to restore some of the tough tests that characterized the courts designed by Donald J. Ross design, emerging as one of the most feared PGA Championships in recent times. decade, often evoking the rigors of 2008 competition at Oakland Hills in Michigan. Of the 156 players who competed in the past week, only 11 finished below par – different from 2013, when the PGA Championship was held at Oak Hill and 21 players finished red.
The stinginess came even with the course, with its dangerously raw and unassuming sandpits, more accommodating on Sunday than it had been before. Smith, Cam Davis, Kurt Kitayama and Sepp Straka all hit 65 seconds on Sunday, helping them stay high on the leaderboard. Patrick Cantlay, who has become one of the tournament’s scarce eagles, has signed the No. 66. Michael Block, whose day job is principal at Arroyo Trabuco Golf Club in the east men’s Los Angeles, had a one-hole in 15th place, the first PGA Championship ace by a professional club since 1996.
But much of the focus on Sunday was on Koepka; Viktor Hovland, Norway’s emerging talent; and Scottie Scheffler, number 2 player in the Official World Golf Ranking. Koepka, his position dwindling because of his lucrative relationship with LIV, which is not recognized in the ranking system, entered Sunday in 44th place. (US PGA, home to host country) organize this tournament, different from the PGA Tour, rival of LIV.)
Koepka entered the first tee with a one-stroke lead and briefly doubled the lead with a birdie on the second hole. He played par for the first three days, always hitting the green after two shots but leaving himself with long shots. On Sunday, with the peg in the front right of the lawn, he was less than 5 feet away.
His birdie on the third hole was even less, after his longest tee in the tournament on a hole called Vista, lifting his advantage to three.
The sixth hole, a threat to so many players throughout the tournaments, appeared. A par-4 challenge that ended with an average of 4.52 strokes, Koepka overcame it well enough on Thursday, Friday and Saturday: par in each of the first three innings. On Sunday, however, his tee shot straight into a thick lawn in the so-called native area. He made a hit and then, about 191 yards from the hole, hit it onto the green and eventually escaped with a bogey. Although Koepka followed with another bogeyman, Hovland also stomped on 7th place.
In the first leg, Koepka led Hovland with a lone shot. Scheffler, a steady voice since he won the Masters last year, and Bryson DeChambeau, the 2020 US Open winner, are three behind.
Koepka replied with a tantalizing sequence: birdie, bogey, birdie. Hovland had a chance to score a birdie on the 12th hole, but his touchdown from nearly 15 feet missed the trophy. With six holes to play, Koepka’s advantage returned to two strokes. Two holes later, it was reduced to one.
But at nearly every major golf championship, there comes a time when one’s victory seems inevitable. It may not have been buttoned mathematically, but almost everyone knew that the tournament was over before it was over.
On Sunday, the scene for that moment was the 16th hole. It wasn’t the worst in Oak Hill, not by far. However, Hovland will miss it.
His tee shot in a bunker, he uses his 9 iron. Less than 175 yards from the hole, he turned and blew his ball – not onto the green but into the edge of the bunker. His fourth shot hits the green. A bogey putt missed, leaving him with a double bogey. Koepka, in the twilight of his pursuit for his third PGA Championship, scored a birdie to claim a four-stroke lead.
“It’s not easy going up against a guy like that,” Hovland said of his duel with Koepka. “He wouldn’t give you anything, and I didn’t really feel like I gave him anything until I was 16.”
Scheffler made a birdie putt on the 18th green right after to close Koepka’s gap. Koepka herself narrowed it down even further with a ghost in 17th place.
He gets to the 18th tee, after all, still has two spare shots. He didn’t make a bogey on the hole, playing 497 yards on Sunday, all week. His tee shot ran for 318 yards and hit the fairway, the stands towering in the distance and the galleries packed with spectators, ready to see if, after all, Koepka was really back. Are not.
He reached the green with his next swing, applause rang out as he made his way up the incline. He knelt down. He approaches the ball, balances and slaps forward. According to league officials, the ball only stopped for short distances – 3 inches.
Of course, there will be one last glitch.
He tried again. The ball falls into the cup.
Indeed, after all, Koepka is back.
