Why doesn’t Koepka know how to choke?
Whatever happened to choking? Brooks Koepka, the winner of three of the previous six majors in which he has competed, appears quite unaware that golf had a grand tradition of brain-frozen foozlers. Mighty men and women, who once stood immovable as tornadoes blew cow sheds past their ears, suddenly go weak at the knees, their arid mouths unable even to ask their caddie to pass the comforter.
Greg Norman, the great blond shark, became the great foozler in the heat of the moment. Tom Watson foozled before he conquered. Jordan Spieth, who once seemed so imperturbable, foozled again and again as his ball sploshed into the water of Rae’s Creek. Ariya Jutanugarn foozled away a seven-shot lead over the final nine holes of this year’s women’s US Open before somehow fluking victory in the playoff.
So who is this bloke Brooks Koepka to come along and spoil our ghoulish viewing pleasure? It’s not supposed to happen, at least not by the hand of a man who was once introduced on the tee of the Phoenix Open as Brooks Cupcake.
Brooks Koepka. It’s not a name that makes you stop and think, not unless you are wondering why he was curiously named after a men’s clothing range. At least his parents didn’t also call the younger brother Brooks, although they continued to follow the great American tradition of giving surnames to boys for a first name. The Koepkas called son number two Chase, possibly getting this moniker from an investment bank.
It’s all very odd, but doesn’t help us find out why Brooks refuses to foozle like the rest of humanity. And let’s face it, he was given every reason to bring up his lunch at this year’s PGA Championship. One of the biggest crowds in major history was going nuts and they weren’t going nuts for the meatloaf from Jupiter. That’s Jupiter, Florida, by the way, just in case you thought Koepka was from another planet.
No, they were going nuts for Tiger Woods who was splaying drives all over the course and then hitting irons that threatened to rip up the hole. The Chosen One was on a tear, as they say in America. The crowd greenside would let out a roar at yet another birdie like a family of elephants who had just won Powerball. Then crowds elsewhere on the course would spot Tiger’s changing numbers and echo the delirium.
Noise bounced around the Missouri trees. And the temperature climbed into the 30s. The heat glanced off your eyeballs. The humidity soaked your shirt. We were getting close to perfect conditions for a meltdown. And then things got worse for the 28-year-old leader.
Two lengthy time delays occurred up ahead as Shane Lowry scratched about for a ruling and the greens crew took an age to repair a hole. Time is the enemy of the golfer. Spend too long in your head and the likelihood of spontaneous combustion soars. And Koepka was having to wait and wait.
The choke happens when time takes over and a player starts to think about what he is doing and how to do it. Muscle memory and the brilliance of the human subconscious are obliterated. Panic happens when time speeds up and the player is unable to think the simplest of thoughts and make easy decisions. That is what happened to the Pulse in the final five minutes of the netball final.
Koepka could have gone either way although the choke seemed a short-priced favourite. And yet he seemed quite oblivious. On the 220-metre 16th hole he hit a 4-iron to six feet. On the final two holes, and the tee shot on 17 had already unravelled two contenders, Koepka pounded his driver over 300 metres down the middle of the fairway. Inhuman.
Nick Faldo knows a thing or two about choking having witnessed the Norman meltdown firsthand. He was in awe. ‘‘He doesn’t blink,’’ Faldo said. ‘‘Not a care in the world. This fella’s not going to create an ulcer right now.
‘‘Hey, kids, if you want to learn about demeanour on a golf course, this is something special to deal with this pressure, this atmosphere.’’
But what are us kids learning? The previous week the 22-year-old Georgia Hall, without a previous victory, had won the Women’s Open with quite brilliant golf on the final day. Hall has a tattoo on the inside of her right wrist that says, ‘‘deep breath’’. However much you practise, people forget to breathe in the stress of the moment.
Gary Woodland, who led the PGA for two rounds before walking along like Tiger’s butler on the final day, was celebrating a new putting routine that took the thinking out of his short game – ‘‘I’m not very good at thinking,’’ he owned cheerfully.
Yet Koepka, who ‘‘honestly’’ doesn’t get rattled or feel intimidated, seems in another realm. Is it because he’s built like Thor and works out in the gym for two hours before he goes on the course? Is it because he’d rather be playing baseball for a living and reckons golf lacks action?
So what’s the secret of Koepka? I suspect he hasn’t read any of the great Russian novelists. My First Baseball Book may be more in Koepka’s line. But it may also be that this golf thing just doesn’t mean all that much to him. Yes, he told his mum in the car once that he wanted to play golf for a living, but then he followed that up by saying fishing would be good, too. He’s a flatlining outlier.
‘‘I heard yer,’’ said Koepka to the waiting Tiger as he walked in to sign his card.
Yet amidst all that sound and fury Koepka played with the innocence of an idiot who reckons that golf signifies just about nothing.
I was about to say maybe he’s right. Forgive me. I’m just another foozler who wasn’t thinking clearly.