TROPHY TIME
Koepka tops Woods in PGA Championship
Brooks Koepka is impossible to overlook now, winning the PGA Championship on Sunday with machine-like precision to go with his back-to-back U.S. Open titles. And it still felt and sounded like he was — — playing second billing to Tiger Woods.
With roars for Woods unheard anywhere this side of Augusta National, Koepka kept his cool and ran offff two birdies on the back nine at Bellerive with Adam Scott tied for the lead and Woods one shot behind. Koepka closed with a 4-under 66 for a two-shot victory, making him only the fififth player to win the U.S. Open and PGA Championship in the same year.
“The crowds here, they let you know what’s going on,” Koepka said with a big grin. “The beginning of the back nine, I could hear all the roars. When Tiger started making his little run, and Scotty
made his run, it got loud.”
Even with two bogeys, Woods shot 64 for his lowest fifinal round in a major. “I played hard,” Woods said. “I made a bit of a run. It looks like I’m going to come up a little short.”
Koepka was responsible for that. After wasting one
chance to put it away, Koepka ran kept attacking flflags and ran in birdie putts of 10 feet on No. 15 and 7 feet on No. 16 to end the drama. He tapped in for par on the fifinal hole to set the PGA Championship scoring record at 264. It also tied the major championship record that Henrik Stenson set two years ago in the British Open.
Koepka has won three of the last six majors he played, and two of three this year. He joined Woods, Jack Nicklaus, Ben Hogan and Gene Sarazen as the only players to win the two U.S. majors that rotate to difffffffffffferent courses in the same year. The 28-yearold Floridian also joined Jordan Spieth, Woods, Nicklaus
and Tom Watson as the only players with three major wins before turning 30 since World War II.
Scott hung around by making big putts and was tied for the lead until Koepka’s birdies. Scott missed a 6-foot birdie putt on the par-5 17th that would have pulled him to within one shot — right
after Koepka missed from the same range — and then made bogey on the 18th for a 67 to fifinish alone in third.
The St. Louis fans waited 17 years to see Woods — he last was at Bellerive when the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks canceled a World Golf Championship — and he delivered. Thomas Bjorn might have seen it coming . Earlier in
the week, he thought back to Woods getting into contention at Carnoustie last month at the British Open. “He recognized who that guy was that day,” Bjorn said. Woods charged toward a
fifinish that caused pure pandemonium among one of the largest and noisiest crowds at a major. Without hitting a fairway on the front nine, he cut the four-shot defificit to two. On the back nine, he dropped an approach into 4 feet on No. 12, got within one shot with a 10-foot birdie on the par-3 13th and, after a bad drive led to bogey, he
answered with an approach that hit a foot from the hole.
Facing the most important drive of the day on the par-5 17th, Woods sent it sailing to the right and it embedded in a hazard along the banks of a creek. He did well to advance it, but had to save par from a bunker. Behind him, Koepka holed his two birdie putts.
Koepka now is No. 2 in the world, with a shot at overtaking Dustin Johnson in two weeks when the FedEx Cup playoffffffffffffs start.