Lessons learned from Masters 2023: Is Brooks Koepka’s revival real? The resilient Jon Rahm made history in round 1

AUGUSTA, Ga. — Two months ago, Brooks Koepka pouted and sulked while watching a gripping episode depicting the 2022 Masters in the Netflix special, “Full Swing”. The sign came when he hit 75-75 in the first two innings, missed his chance and lamented: “I’ll be honest with you guys, I can’t play against these guys week in, week out.”

ABOVE Thursday at Masters 2023just a year after Koepka desperately looked as if he was cooked to be a major championship golfer, he hit his best round ever at Augusta National with eight 65 birdies He is leading with Jon Rahm and Viktor Hovland after 18 holes .

“Anytime with something like that, you don’t see everything, do you?” Koepka talks about the remarkable episode. “A lot, it all depends on the wound.”

Koepka looked pretty fit going into the Masters last year, scoring four top 20 finishes in six starts before that event. He claims he is much healthier now, possibly even close to 100% of his former self.

“Once you feel good,” he says, “everything changes.”

The interesting thing about this is the data. After a slip at the 2021 Masters – that famous tournament where he had surgery after three weeks and had to stretch his leg to the side when trying to read the shots – Koepka was literally crushed at rest. back of the prize. majors, consecutively completing T2, T4 and T6. That was the year he nearly lost to Phil Mickelson at the PGA Championship in Kiawah just two months after the surgery.

So wait a minute, is his knee worse in 2022 (when the Netflix episode of despair happened and his best at the majors was T55) compared to 2021 two months after surgery? But now, is it healthy again?

That’s what Koepka seems to be alluding to.

“It’s a new normal,” Koepka says of her health, “but it’s definitely pretty close 1680864003 what is it [when I was younger].”

Koepka has always been somewhat ambiguous with his injuries, often deflecting and highlighting the drama in the actual timeline. On Thursday, at one point he said, “I dislocated my knee and then I tried to put it back.” He even said in the fall that he would eventually need a right knee replacement.

So what’s going on here? What’s at the bottom of all of this? Why all the directions go wrong in the discussion around his knees?

I have a theory: Brooks Koepka is extremely afraid of failure. Like the rest of us. It’s just that his fear of failure plays out on the bigger and higher-risk historical stages of ours. It’s a difficult concept to deal with.

Koepka has built himself into the generational threat during his 2017-19 major streak, and that has become his entire aura. He kept saying “do you know how easy it is for me?” gait closed many major tournaments. It’s fascinating and he loves that he knows that other people know it too.

But when things went awry at the end of the 2019 PGA Championship (even though he won) and at the end of the 2020 PGA Championship (when he didn’t) and at the end of the 2021 PGA Championship (when he didn’t win). 51 years – old man Phil Mickelson dropped him into the Atlantic Ocean on a doped wire), his own failure – what scared him the most, the price he couldn’t afford – stabilized.

So now, sometimes what you see is someone cranky, someone terrified of existence, and someone who has convinced himself that only one What keeps him from winning more major championships is one in-game factor he can barely control: his health.

Maybe that’s the truth. Maybe no one can beat Koepka when he’s healthy. But is he even healthy now? He claims to be and he won’t change his tune this week. But if he doesn’t go ahead with a real contention or a Masters win this weekend, it’s easy to look back on this week (assuming he hit 66 in the first round of the US Open) with Kopeka convincing herself, Oh, I didn’t really healthy in Augusta. Especially because, when you need a knee replacement, you never really healthy.

Success has an uncanny way of making us doubt ourselves, and traumas – like those that Koepka inevitably struggled to overcome – become an easy place to place the blame on us. The comical level of confidence that the player must maintain almost demands this. But remember: Koepka showed us his cap at that 2021 PGA just two months after the surgery. He’s still in rehabilitation in that PGA but wrote it off, saying he could deal with the pain. He almost won the whole thing. His injuries are a problem, I’m not sure who they are the problem.

Koepka’s struggles seem a little deeper than physical. There’s a psychological name to it: imposter syndrome. And it’s a pretty common topic, especially among those who have experienced a high level of success like Koepka. That Netflix episode from a year ago… it may be partly about trauma, but it looks like it’s more than that. You don’t talk about what’s going on in Scottie Scheffler’s head if all you’re dealing with is a trauma.

I can’t shake the image of Koepka, down at the dock at the end of his episode, staring out into the sea, wondering what his future holds. For now, it holds no one ahead of him at this year’s Masters. In a previous life, Koepka’s name at the top of the leaderboard like this would have caused fear from others in the league. Now, I wonder if it doesn’t elicit some of its own.

Here are a few more thoughts on Round 1.

Jon Rahm’s Bounce

After hitting a double-bogey 6 on the first hole, Rahm played his final round of 17 game at Augusta National with 59 strokes, won 8.0 from tee to green and tied with Koepka and Hovland to take the lead. . That’s the lowest score for any golfer in Masters history to start his round with a double or worse. The extraordinary juxtaposition of the first hole versus the next 17 is symbolic of who Rahm is at major championships, and it’s a reminder that he doesn’t get enough credit for his competitive spirit. his tenacity. Rahm has been heavily criticized over the years for his short temper (sometimes, deservedly), but he should also receive praise for his ability to endure a rough start and rise to the top. to the top of the rankings.

“If you’re going to do doubles or quads or whatever, that could be the first hole,” says Rahm. “[You have] 71 holes to make it up. Then it’s more, I focus on the fact that all strokes are good. The readings are good. The rolls are good. Obviously, the pace was reduced in the first two putts, so once I accepted that there was nothing really to look at, I just got to work and I had 17 holes to make up for.”

Sam Bennett’s 1st round performance

Bennett could be who we thought Gordon Sargent would be. Bennett opened the score 3-4 in the first two holes and did not release the gas. The US amateur champion is a super-talent, though Sargent entered this week with more hype. And while some of the shots Sargent hit left me gasp on the golf course, Thursday was nonetheless a Trackman golfer versus a hole-punch golfer. It’s certainly not as pretty as Sargent, but Bennett looks like he belongs in the world No 1, with whom he played with (and on equal points with him) in Round 1.

Top 10 in Round 1

Since 2005, only Tiger Woods has come from outside the top 10 after the first round of the Masters to win the tournament. If that statistic is true — and I believe it is — your Masters winner will be one of the following golfers:

• Viktor Hovland
• Jon Rahm
• Brooks Koepka
• Young Cameron
• Jason’s Day
• Shane Lowry
• Xander Schauffele
• Adam Scott
• Forest Gary
• Scottie Scheffler
• Sam Bennett
• Sam Burns

Spieth: Madness in the Membrane

Spieth’s ring can be summarized in a quote and a screenshot.

Here’s the quote: “I made seven birdies, so I wish I’d posted a lower number.”

That is the best Spieth quote of all Spieth quotes.

And here’s the screenshot after Spieth’s 13th approach into Rae’s Creek.

Spieth shot 32 in the front, and you know it’s going to get weird from there. Of course it did. He hit it in the water in 11th place and then again approached in 13th, playing Amen Corner for 3 innings. Then it was typical that Spieth scored two birdies out of his last four to put his round back 3 points below, keeping him on the lead. This is the fourth time he’s opened with a round in the ’60s at Augusta. Of the remaining three, he went on to finish in third place.

Scottie vs Rahm

That’s what the league will come down to. Scheffler made the easiest 68 you’ll ever see in your life, hitting 7.9 strokes from tee to tee and second to last in the field in putt. That won’t happen for a whole week, and when the flat bar starts to click, he’ll do what he’s been doing for 15 months in a row and start building some distance between him and the field. It seems Rahm is the only one who can keep up with the pace.